LED Blinker: Component Design and Initial Implementation

The purpose of this exercise is to walk you through the creation and initial implementation of an F´ component to control the blinking of an LED. This section will discuss the design of the full component, the implementation of a command to start/stop the LED blinking, and the sending of events. Users will then proceed to the initial ground testing before finishing the implementation in a later section.

Component Design

In order for our component to blink an LED, it needs to accept a command to turn on the LED and drive a GPIO pin via a port call to the GPIO driver. It will also need a rate group input port to control the timing of the blink. Additionally, we will define events and telemetry channels to report component state, and a parameter to control the period of the blink.

This component design is captured in the block diagram below with input ports on the left and output ports on the right. Ports for standard F´ functions (e.g. commands, events, telemetry, and parameters) are circled in green.

In this exercise, the BLINKING_ON_OFF command shall toggle the blinking state of the LED. The period of the blinking is controlled by the BLINK_INTERVAL parameter. Blinking is implemented on the run rate group input port. The component also defines several telemetry channels and events describing the various actions taken by the component.

Design Summary

Component Ports:

1. run: invoked at a set rate from the rate group, used to control the LED blinking
2. gpioSet: invoked by the Led component to control the GPIO driver

Standard component ports (circled in green) are not listed here.

Commands:

1. BLINKING_ON_OFF: turn the LED blinking on/off

Events:

1. InvalidBlinkArgument: emitted when an invalid argument was supplied to the BLINKING_ON_OFF command
2. SetBlinkingState: emitted when the component sets the blink state
3. BlinkIntervalSet: emitted when the component blink interval parameter is set
4. LedState: emitted when the LED is driven to a new state

Telemetry Channels:

1. BlinkingState: state of the LED blinking
2. LedTransitions: count of the LED transitions

Parameters:

1. BLINK_INTERVAL: LED blink period in number of rate group calls

Create the component

It is time to create the basic component. In a terminal, navigate to the project’s root directory and run the following:

# In led-blinker
cd Components

fprime-util new --component

You will be prompted for information regarding your component. Fill out the prompts as shown below:

[INFO] Cookiecutter source: using builtin
Component name [MyComponent]: Led
Component short description [Example Component for F Prime FSW framework.]: Component to blink an LED driven by a rate group
Component namespace [Components]: Components
Select component kind:
1 - active
2 - passive
3 - queued
Choose from 1, 2, 3 [1]: 1
Enable Commands?:
1 - yes
2 - no
Choose from 1, 2 [1]: 1  
Enable Telemetry?:
1 - yes
2 - no
Choose from 1, 2 [1]: 1
Enable Events?:
1 - yes
2 - no
Choose from 1, 2 [1]: 1
Enable Parameters?:
1 - yes
2 - no
Choose from 1, 2 [1]: 1
[INFO] Found CMake file at 'led-blinker/Components/CMakeLists.txt'
Add component Led to led-blinker/Components/CMakeLists.txt at end of file (yes/no)? yes
Generate implementation files (yes/no)? yes

Your new component is located in the directory led-blinker/Components/Led.

Component State

Many of the behaviors of the component discussed in the Component Design section require the tracking of some state. Before diving into the implementation of the behavior let us set up and initialize that state.

Open Led.hpp in led-blinker/Components/Led. Add the following to the top of the Led.hpp:

#include <Os/Mutex.hpp>

Next, add the following private member variables to the end of the file just before the two closing } of the class defintion and namespace.

    Os::Mutex lock; //! Protects our data from thread race conditions
    Fw::On state; //! Keeps track if LED is on or off
    U64 transitions; //! The number of on/off transitions that have occurred from FSW boot up
    U32 count; //! Keeps track of how many ticks the LED has been on for
    bool blinking; //! Flag: if true then LED blinking will occur else no blinking will happen

Open Led.cpp in led-blinker/Components/Led, and initialize your member variables in the constructor:

Led ::Led(const char* const compName) : LedComponentBase(compName),
    state(Fw::On::OFF),
    transitions(0),
    count(0),
    blinking(false)
{}

Now that the member variables are set up, we can continue into the component implementation.

The above code will fail to find the Fw::On enum type until we use it in the FPP model in the next section. To fix immediately, add #include <Fw/Types/OnEnumAc.hpp> to the top of Led.hpp.

Commands

Commands are used to command the component from the ground system or a command sequencer. We will add a command named BLINKING_ON_OFF to turn on or off the blinking LED. This command will take in an argument named on_off of type Fw.On.

Inside your led-blinker/Components/Led directory, open the file Led.fpp and search for the following:

        # One async command/port is required for active components
        # This should be overridden by the developers with a useful command/port
        @ TODO
        async command TODO opcode 0

Replace that block with the following:

        @ Command to turn on or off the blinking LED
        async command BLINKING_ON_OFF(
            on_off: Fw.On @< Indicates whether the blinking should be on or off
        )

Save the file, exit the text editor, and run the following in the led-blinker/Components/Led directory:

# In led-blinker/Components/Led
fprime-util impl

This command will auto generate two files: Led.hpp-template and Led.cpp-template. These files contain the stub implementation for the component. These should now include stubs for this newly added command.

Inside your led-blinker/Components/Led directory, open Led.hpp-template and copy the following block of code. Paste it in replacement of the TODO_cmdHandler block in Led.hpp.

      //! Implementation for BLINKING_ON_OFF command handler
      //! Command to turn on or off the blinking LED
      void BLINKING_ON_OFF_cmdHandler(
          const FwOpcodeType opCode, /*!< The opcode*/
          const U32 cmdSeq, /*!< The command sequence number*/
          Fw::On on_off /*!< 
          Indicates whether the blinking should be on or off
          */
      );

Inside your led-blinker/Components/Led directory, open Led.cpp-template and copy the following block of code and paste it into Led.cpp replacing the TODO_cmdHandler block.

  void Led ::
    BLINKING_ON_OFF_cmdHandler(
        const FwOpcodeType opCode,
        const U32 cmdSeq,
        Fw::On on_off
    )
  {
    // TODO
    this->cmdResponse_out(opCode,cmdSeq,Fw::CmdResponse::OK);
  }

This pattern of copying implementations from *-template files into our cpp and hpp files will be repeated throughout the rest of this tutorial.

Now we will implement the behavior of the BLINKING_ON_OFF command. An initial implementation is shown below and may be copied into Led.cpp in-place of the stub we just copied in.

  void Led ::
    BLINKING_ON_OFF_cmdHandler(
        const FwOpcodeType opCode,
        const U32 cmdSeq,
        Fw::On on_off
    )
  {
    // Create a variable to represent the command response
    auto cmdResp = Fw::CmdResponse::OK;

    // Verify if on_off is a valid argument.
    // Note: isValid is an autogenerate helper function for enums defined in fpp.
    if(!on_off.isValid())
    {
        // TODO: Add an event that indicates we received an invalid argument.
        // NOTE: Add this event after going through the "Events" exercise.

        // Update command response with a validation error
        cmdResp = Fw::CmdResponse::VALIDATION_ERROR;
    }
    else
    {
      this->count = 0; // Reset count on any successful command
      this->lock.lock();
      this->blinking = Fw::On::ON == on_off; // Update blinking state
      this->lock.unlock();

      // TODO: Add an event that reports the state we set to blinking.
      // NOTE: This event will be added during the "Events" exercise.

      // TODO: Report the blinking state via a telemetry channel.
      // NOTE: This telemetry channel will be added during the "Telemetry" exercise.
    }

    // Provide command response
    this->cmdResponse_out(opCode,cmdSeq,cmdResp);
  }

lock.lock() locks the mutex used to protect the blinking member variable as it is set in BLINKING_ON_OFF_cmdHandler but will be read elsewhere.

Save the file then run the following command in the terminal to verify your component is building correctly.

# In led-blinker/Components/Led
fprime-util build

Fix any errors that occur before proceeding with the rest of the tutorial.

Events

Events represent a log of system activities. Events are typically emitted any time the system takes an action. Events are also emitted to report off-nominal conditions. Our component has four events, two that this section will show and two are left to the student.

Back inside your led-blinker/Components/Led directory, open the Led.fpp file. After the command you added in the previous section, add two events:

        @ Indicates we received an invalid argument.
        event InvalidBlinkArgument(badArgument: Fw.On) \
            severity warning low \
            format "Invalid Blinking Argument: {}"

        @ Reports the state we set to blinking.
        event SetBlinkingState(state: Fw.On) \
            severity activity high \
            format "Set blinking state to {}."

Save the file and in the terminal, run the following to verify your component is building correctly.

# In led-blinker/Components/Led
fprime-util build

Resolve any errors before continuing.

Now open Led.cpp in your led-blinker/Components/Led directory and navigate to the BLINKING_ON_OFF command. Report via our new event when there is an error in the input argument.

To do so, replace:

        // TODO: Add an event that indicates we received an invalid argument.
        // NOTE: Add this event after going through the "Events" exercise.

with:

        this->log_WARNING_LO_InvalidBlinkArgument(on_off);

Similarly, use an event to report the blinking state has been set.

Replace the following:

      // TODO: Add an event that reports the state we set to blinking.
      // NOTE: This event will be added during the "Events" exercise.

with:

      this->log_ACTIVITY_HI_SetBlinkingState(on_off);

Save the file and in the terminal, run the following to verify your component is building correctly.

fprime-util build

Resolve any fprime-util build errors before continuing

Try it yourself

Below is a table with tasks you should complete. These tasks require you to go back into the component’s files and add the missing lines.

Save all files and in the terminal, run the following to verify your component is building correctly.

# In led-blinker/Components/Led
fprime-util build

Resolve any fprime-util build errors before continuing

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have now implemented some basic functionality in a new F´ component. Before finishing the implementation, let’s take a break and try running the above command through the ground system. This will require integrating the component into the system topology, which we will get into in the next section.

Next Step: Initial Component Integration.