Flexible Data Processing with Plug-in Enabled Tools
George Leussis · SpaceOps 2012 Conference · 2012
In today's space operations environment, processing requirements evolve rapidly. Changing data transport formats frequently requires significant alterations to ground processing software simply to get data into the system. Further, end users may desire output not envisioned by the systems designers. I will show how these problems can be solved by applying the concept of plug-ins. A plug-in is small software component that acts on the data in independent stages and can communicate with the system as a whole by passing signals, or API-defined data structures called “messages”. A plug-in can also communicate with other plug-ins using either signals, messages, or their own shared structures. Plug-ins utilize the system's API to either provide input to, or output from the system. They can access the entire data stream or be restricted to a subset. They can work in concert with the database or completely ignore the system's definitions to perform processing not previously thought necessary. I.