Building a Ground M&C System with WebSocket - A New Way to Talk to an Antenna
Yi Wasser, Armin Hauke · SpaceOps 2016 Conference · 2016
Not until so long ago, a web-based application is basically not suitable for the concept of M&C, since a permanent, full-duplex link is essential for the real-time monitoring and commanding and the HTTP protocol is just not designed for such a purpose.However, the arrival of the WebSocket protocol opens a new door in front of us.This paper demonstrates how we could benefit from this newly emerged protocol to efficiently develop browser-based application as frontend for antenna monitoring and control system.Depending neither on the hardware, nor on the operating system being installed, such a frontend can run on any device or on any computer where a browser is available -assuming the browser supports the WebSocket protocol.This generality makes the task of monitoring and control mobile.Sitting at home, waiting for flight at airport, through a secured Internet connection, an operator can have real time information about the antenna anywhere anytime with his laptop, tablet or smartphone.If he is allowed, he can even command the antenna.The new technology and the widely spread mobile devices are changing our traditional way of monitoring and control.We shall take advantage of the new technology and be ready for the changes. Nomenclature M&C= A system to remotely monitor and control some given hardware equipment on ground PDB = Parameter Database -a generic M&C framework developed at GSOC WARP = Weilheim Antenna Remote Processing, Antenna M&C system used at Weilheim ground station NEMO = Network Monitoring, M&C system used at Weilheim ground station QT = A cross-platform framework for developing GUI application