EPICS Controls Argonne National Laboratory

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  <20072008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024  Index 1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  <20072008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024 
<== Date ==> <== Thread ==>

Subject: RE: evaluation of OMG DDS as a controls protocol for EPICS
From: "Thompson, David H." <[email protected]>
To: "Kasemir, Kay" <[email protected]>, Claude Saunders <[email protected]>
Cc: "Lawrence T. Hoff" <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 11:30:36 -0500
The robotics group at ORNL was involved with RTI early on.  As I recall
NDDS was integrated with control shell.  You could define your own data
types in NDDS's data description language which is a lot like Sun RPC
and then plug an NDDS connection into your data flow diagram.  Not sure
if control shell supported generating the DDL but it must by now.

We had to develop our own GUI's and I once started on one specific for a
set of our applications. We used Xdesigner and a framework for a lot of
the GUIs.  

We used control shell and NDDS on several large projects and sometimes
just NDDS.  Not all of our projects were appropriate for either.

Since then most of the robotics group have had to move on and most of
the remaining projects there are highly embedded stuff not using much
networking.


-----Original Message-----
From: Kay-Uwe Kasemir [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:10 AM
To: Claude Saunders
Cc: Lawrence T. Hoff; [email protected]
Subject: Re: evaluation of OMG DDS as a controls protocol for EPICS

On Feb 15, 2007, at 10:46 , Claude Saunders wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, what other RTI S/W have you used? Other than 
> NDDS, I'm only aware of their SkyBoard product (which is very odd and 
> interesting at the same time).
At LANL, I once used a demo version of RTI's "StethoScope", a GUI for
Strip-charting vxWorks variables.

We also had one license for "ControlShell":
A Java-based IDE for drawing State Diagrams as well as data flow,
creating C++ skeleton code for vxWorks.
When clicking on the state diagram transitions or blocks in the data
flow diagram, you can enter C++ code snippets for entering the state,
processing a block etc.
The result becomes a compiled vxWorks binary.

The data flow blocks are a bit like EPICS records. The control shell
library provides the framework for initializing and processing the
records.
Each block that you define compares to a custom record.
You can create blocks for e.g. PID and reuse those, but I don't think
you get a lot of predefined blocks similar to records in EPICS base.

The state diagram tool was actually real nice, because you could also
use it at runtime to monitor the running state machine:
The 'active' state was highlighted etc.

So it's similar to the IOC side of EPICS, but Control shell didn't
include a network protocol nor client side tools beyond the state
machine monitor.
When I now look at the RTI web page, "ControlShell" might have been
renamed to "Constellation":
http://www.rti.com/products/robotics_controls/documents/
ConstellationOverview.pdf

-Kay




References:
Re: evaluation of OMG DDS as a controls protocol for EPICS Kay-Uwe Kasemir

Navigate by Date:
Prev: Re: evaluation of OMG DDS as a controls protocol for EPICS Kay-Uwe Kasemir
Next: Re: evaluation of OMG DDS as a controls protocol for EPICS Lawrence T. Hoff
Index: 1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  <20072008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024 
Navigate by Thread:
Prev: Re: evaluation of OMG DDS as a controls protocol for EPICS Kay-Uwe Kasemir
Next: Re: evaluation of OMG DDS as a controls protocol for EPICS Lawrence T. Hoff
Index: 1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  <20072008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024 
ANJ, 10 Nov 2011 Valid HTML 4.01! · Home · News · About · Base · Modules · Extensions · Distributions · Download ·
· Search · EPICS V4 · IRMIS · Talk · Bugs · Documents · Links · Licensing ·