Details
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Feature
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Not Assigned
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None
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Obs Mgt & Controls
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8
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6
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3.75
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Team_BUTTONS
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Sprint 5
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6.6
Description
In SP-301, Observing Scripts controlled the MVP by relaying externally defined Configuration Data Model (CDM) entities to TMC. These CDM entities were prepared offline and stored on disk. The Observing Script did not create the CDMs and had to do only minimal parsing of them before relaying the CDM entities to TMC SubArrayNodes. While SP-301 resulted in successful sub-array control, it does not reflect the final design where observations are defined in Scheduling Blocks and not in hard-coded Configuration Data Model entities.
The next step is to evolve to the standard observing scenario where the Observing Script input takes the form of the first Scheduling Block Instances (SBI). The function of the Observing Script then becomes to parse and interpret the SBIs, convert them (in memory) to CDMs, and then relay the fully defined CDM scan configurations to TMC as/when required to perform an observation. The data flow would then accurately reflect the CDR design where observations defined in the science-focussed, flexible, slightly generalised SBI format are translated to the instrument-focussed, ICD-compliant CDMs, which then control the telescope.
There are three aspects to this feature:
- Create a Python representation of the SB Instance data model.
- Create a shared library that can marshall Python SB Instances to/from a serialised format (assumed to be JSON).
- Modify the Observing Scripts to make use of the SB shared library, inserting a conversion step that translates a SBI to equivalent CDMs, then use the CDMs to control the MVP.
This feature has a dependency on the delivery of an initial Scheduling block definition (SP-172)