MACE camera controller embedded software: Redesign for robustness and maintainability

摘要

Control and monitoring software for data acquisition systems should have an efficient, reliable, and robust design comprising dual redundant communications, fault tolerant behavior, error handling, and recovery features as well as simple deployment and maintainability. The Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment (MACE) telescope comprises many functionally diverse subsystems. The camera is one of its major subsystems and it is responsible for imaging and event data acquisition. The central camera controller (CCC) manages and coordinates all the actions of the camera subsystems and it collects monitoring data for the MACE operator console. The robustness, efficiency, and reliability of the CCC are vital for conducting successful observations. Prototype software was developed to control the basic functions of the system and the complexity of the software increased as the system evolved over time due to the addition of functionalities. The remote location of the telescope also imposes some constraints on achieving the maximum reachability. Thus, the CCC software was redesigned from scratch to overcome the existing issues and to satisfy the system constraints. The improvement in the overall performance of the system as a result of new design of the software is described in this study. The most important design aspects of the new software are described along with its requirements and advantages. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.