System Manager (2023)
- Gagan Deep Singh
- Ronald You
🤔 Problem Statement
In the Zero-Pilot Architecture, System Manager is the highest level entity. System Manager parses controller inputs, overlooks and orchestrates the conversations between other managers, and manages the state of the drone.
Milestone 1 Implementation
For Milestone 1, System Manager is a simple class that has a manual flying mode. Here is a list of available functions with the System Manager class for Milestone 1.
Function Name | Purpose | Return Type |
|---|---|---|
Public Functions | ||
fly_manually | Puts device in manual control mode, gets data using SBUS, and executes commands on the motors using PWM Out driver. | None. Void Function. |
Private Functions | ||
set_control_mode | Sets the control method of the device. Mainly for state-keeping. In the future, it will notify AM about this change. | None. Void Function. |
set_arm_mode | Sets the arm mode of the device. Mainly for state-keeping. In the future, it will notify AM about this change. | None. Void Function. |
set_flight_mode | Sets the flight mode of the device. Mainly for state-keeping. In the future, it will notify AM about this change. | None. Void Function. |
get_control_mode | Returns the current control mode on the device. | CONTROL_METHOD alias for int |
get_arm_mode | Returns the current arm status on the device. | ARM_MODE alias for int |
get_flight_mode | Returns the current flight mode set on device. | FLIGHT_MODE alias for int |
execute_input | Executes passed data on the motors | None. Void Function. |
Milestone 2 Implementation
Goal: Integrate Attitude Manager and Telemetry Manager by threading them so that the two managers run in “parallel”.
Current State: System Manager directly sends RC data to motors after converting it to percentages. Data is not processed at all. Watch Dog is called by System Manager every loop. Complicated arm/disarm fail-safe in place.
Key Notes:
Make sure to allocate enough time for each manager so that its processes have enough time to execute
May have to implement a queue for data
May have to implement interrupts
Reference Material
Link to previous SysManager https://github.com/UWARG/ZeroPilot-SW-3/tree/main/SystemManager
Link to a simple SysManager https://github.com/UWARG/SimpleSystemManager/blob/master/Core/Src/main.cpp
Miscellaneous Notes
Watch Dog: an electronic timer that is used to detect and recover from errors within embedded systems. Within a specific time period, the system has to notify the Watchdog that it is still operational. If the Watchdog does not receive this notification then it assumes there has been a failure and places the system into a known state (usually error state, in this case, disarm (I believe)).