User Guide

Welcome to the Constellation User Guide. This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the framework for operators as well as for people who want to integrate their own hardware or develop new satellites. For the development of Constellation itself and for more in-depth technical information, there is a separate Developer’s Guide which should be consulted.

This guide is structured in four different parts, each of which serve a different purpose:

• The installation and initial setup of Constellation is described in the Getting Started section.

• Tutorials teach how to use Constellation using practical examples, starting from simple situations such as starting and controlling a single satellite, and gradually moving to more complex examples & setups.

• The Concepts section provides detailed explanation of the workings of the framework and the thoughts behind its structure. This is not the technical documentation of the Constellation core components, it describes their functionality and helps in developing an understanding of the system.

• Finally, the How-To Guides provide concise answers on how to achieve a specific goal, such as the implementation of a new satellite, or the extension of a satellite with custom commands.

Warning

This software framework is still under construction and no stable version has been released yet. Features, protocols and the behavior of individual components may still change.

Get started

• Installing from Source
• Installing from PyPI

Tutorials

• Starting & Controlling a Satellite
  • Starting a Satellite
  • Controlling the Satellite
    • Starting a Controller
    • Sending Commands to the Satellite
    • Loading a Configuration File
    • Closing the Controller

Concepts

• Constellation Concepts
  • General Considerations
    • Naming Things
    • Limitations & Threat Model Considerations
  • Component Types
    • The Satellite
    • The Controller
    • The Listener
• Logging & Verbosity Levels
  • Verbosity Levels
  • Logging Macros
• The Satellite
  • Type and Name
  • State and Status
  • Controlling the Satellite
  • The Finite State Machine
    • Normal Operation - Steady States
    • Operating the Instrument - The RUN State
    • Changing States - Transitions
    • Failure Modes & Safe State
• The Controller
• The Listener
• Autonomous Operation
• Statistics

How-To Guides

• Implementing a new Satellite in C++
  • Implementing the FSM Transitions
  • Running and the Stop Token
  • To Reconfigure or Not To Reconfigure
  • Transmitting Data
    • Data Format & Performance Considerations
    • Metadata
  • Error Handling
    • Generic Errors
    • Configuration Errors
  • Building the Satellite
• Implementing a new Satellite in Python
  • Implementing the FSM Transitions
  • Running and the Stop Event
  • Logging
  • Sending stats
  • Adding entry point installation for the satellite
• Adding Custom Satellite Commands
  • The Command Registry
  • Registering The Command
  • Name and description
  • Command arguments and return values
  • Allowed FSM states
• Porting a EUDAQ Producer
  • Porting the Finite State Machine Transitions
  • Transmitting Data
  • Adjusting the Logging Mechanism
  • Error Handling
• Setting up InfluxDB and Grafana
  • Setting up Docker Compose
  • Setting up InfluxDB
  • Setting up Grafana
  • Adding a Dashboard
    • Generating Monitoring Data
    • Creating a Query
    • Adding a Visualization
• Receiving Data in C++
  • Receiving Data
• Increase Data Rate in C++
  • Impact of Larger Frames
  • Impact of more Frames per Message