Auto Detection of New Sensor Data
SCS now has the capability to automatically detect new sensor feeds on COM ports hooked up to the primary server. This is accomplished via the Sensor Automatic Detection service. This service runs on-demand and can be run with all available settings (every possible combination of baud, parity, etc) or just the most commonly used ones (much faster though less thorough) for a COM port. If it finds something new it attempts to match it up against known definitions inside SCS. It will then present the find to you in the Auto-Detect tab of CFE.
In addition to the service scanning available ports, ACQ also will send unrecognized data to the service on the ports that are currently active.
Ongoing results from this service are displayed in the details pane once the tab is selected. At the top of the pane you will see all discovered messages for each port.
If nothing is in the Detected grid then no new items have been discovered. Check back periodically to ensure nothing is queued up and waiting for your attention.
Each discovered message is grouped into the port on which it was found. The first column presents what SCS thinks the message is, a sample of the data is displayed in the second column and finally the time that it was detected is in the last column.
Right-clicking on any item will present you with a context menu with action items you can take.
If you wish to add the discovered message definition to your current Working Configuration in CFE click Add to Configuration. The entire message and all it's data fields will automatically be added and broken out for you. Review it and don't forget to Save and publish for it to become active inside ACQ!
Many devices output data that may not be considered important from a scientific data collection perspective (like the waypoint messages from a GPS). Most likely all these streams will be automatically discovered and added to this list. If you wish to ignore the entire COM port or the message itself you can do so for a period of time (if you are testing or playing with the device/sensor/port, etc) or indefinitely (never want to see it again, like perhaps the above mentioned waypoint data).
If you choose to ignore the items, whether temporarily or permanently, they will be added to the Ignored grid located below the Detected grid.
Right-clicking on an ignored item will let you stop ignoring it and move it back into the Detected grid.
Auto detection is only available over COM ports. Polled COM, network and any other means of incoming data traffic are ignored.
Auto detection has to iterate all possible combinations of serial settings and therefore can take quite some time to process a port before starting over from the beginning. If have plugged something in and it's not showing up you may wish to kick off a scanning job specific to the data you know is there. To do this you can tell the background service to immediately prioritize and start an auto-detection job on a specific port via the Detect On Port button inside the Auto-Detect tab. Simply pick the port from the drop-down list and click the button.
The Ignored grid shows ports that are ignored for all reasons, not just those specifically set to be ignored by a user. The 3 types are “Ignored by User” “Locked by ACQ” and “Locked by Custom Message.” Hovering over a row will bring up details e.g. "In use by COM Interface HullTempC-High." Ports that are locked by ACQ or locked by a custom message are at a lower opacity and do not provide a context menu since they are for informational purposes only. Ports that are Ignored by User are listed first, are at full opacity, and provide a context menu to allow the user to stop ignoring the port.
The service cannot scan ports currently in use by ACQ. If you have the interface settings correct (baud, parity, etc) then ACQ itself should relay undefined messages to the service. But if you have incorrect settings then ACQ will hold the port and no data will be sent to the service. If you want to do a full scan of a port you have to remove it from being active inside ACQ (disable or delete the interface and publish).
The service cannot scan ports currently in use by Custom Messages. If you want to do a full scan of a port being used in a Custom Message you have to stop the message before attempting to run the scan.
This service might have a tendency to consume CPU. If you are running on a more modest machine or notice high CPU usage you might want to consider disabling this service on startup.