Sequencing In F´

F´ supports a very basic sequence format that allows for executing F´ commands at absolute times and at times relative to previous commands. The sequence uses the F´ dictionary to translate the human-readable sequence file into a minimized binary format for upload and running using the command sequencer.

Compiling this sequence is done with the fprime-seqgen utility and can be run once uploaded by issuing the *.CS_RUN command of any command sequencer instance defined in the flight system.

Writing an F´ Sequence File

F´ sequence files consist of lists of commands. These commands start with a time argument, followed by the command mnemonic, and lastly any arguments to command. See the example below, which are all pulled from the example sequence file found here: simple_sequence.seq.

A2015-075T22:32:40.123 cmdDisp.CMD_NO_OP

Note: See Time Details for more on time formats and time bases.

Here an absolute command was chosen. Times can be specified in an absolute or relative time format. An absolute time starts with an A and specifies a calendar time. A relative command is specified starting with an R, which runs relative to the previous command or start of the sequence. A relative command with an argument is shown below.

R01:00:01.050 CMD_NO_OP_STRING "Awesome string!" ; And a nice comment too

A list of these commands can be specified in a text file typically ending with the .seq extension. Comments start with a ;. The example file above goes into a greater explanation of the sample commands.

Compiling A Sample Sequence

The fprime-seqgen command can compile the sequence into a binary format that F´ flight software can execute. To do this the user should provide a path to the flight software dictionary and a path to the text file discussed above. Below is an example of how to run the sample example sequence with the Ref dictionary. Remember to build first or the dictionary will not be generated.

fprime-seqgen fprime/Gds/examples/simple_sequence.seq -d fprime/Ref/build-artifacts/*/dict/RefTopologyDictionary.json

Here the output file is not specified, so it will be a new file in the same directory as the sequence but ending with the .bin extension.

This binary file should be uploaded to the flight software. Given limitations on file path length, it should be copied to /tmp when running locally.

Running The Binary Sequence

Once uploaded, the sequence can be run by executing the .CS_RUN command of any command sequencer. Here we will run the cmdSeq instance’s .CS_RUN command using an upload location of /tmp/sample_sequence.bin. This should work in the Ref application.

cmdSeq.CS_RUN	"/tmp/sample_sequence.bin"

Note: The sample sequence will run for multiple hours due to the specification of the relative commands.

Time Details

Time is represented in the sequence file using several formats. Relative times are represented with ISO_8601 time with only subseconds being optional, see table below. Absolute times are represented in ISO_8601 using ordinal dates (day of year) and time with optional subseconds.

Note: Relative times cannot exceed 24 hours.

Since sequences can specify the absolute time it may be dangerous to run a sequence should the flight software time not be synchronized with a known source. For example, it may be dangerous to run a sequence near system boot before time has been polled from a hardware clock or system time source.

A sequence can be built with an expected time base and said sequence will not run should the flight software report time system in a different time base. For example, a sequence using TB_SC_TIME (spacecraft time) could be prevented from running if the flight software is currently using raw processor time and has not synchronized time with a known time source. The available time sources are listed below:

Note: The above descriptions represent typically usages of these time bases but are project specific i.e. TB_SC_TIME might derive time from an internet time source.