Allocation of Front End II interface compliant device

Question

I am working REDHAWK 1.9 on Centos 6.4 (32 bit) OS.

I have a device that conforms to the FrontEnd( FE) II interface for a Tuner. The allocation of an FEII compliant device is via a structure (frontend_tuner_allocation). The IDE does not appear to allow to define this allocation on the implementations tab.

I looked at REDHAWK UHD device usage. It describes how to make the necessary connections but I didn't see how to allocate via the tuner allocation structure.

I have seen example (offline) where to do this allocation the allocation structure has to be hand coded into the xml file. I saw in one case this was done in the components spd.xml file. I have another example where it was done in the waveform.

example 1: In components spd.xml

<usesdevice id="DCE:11bafc63-d8ce-428b-8b4e-39cb96034e8c" type="usesDevice">
  <propertyref refid="DCE:cdc5ee18-7ceb-4ae6-bf4c-31f983179b4d" value="FRONTEND:TUNER"/>
  <structref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation">
    <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::allocation_id" value="SimFE2TestSink"/>
    <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::center_frequency" value="857000000.0"/>
  </structref>
</usesdevice>

example 2: In waveform spd.xml

   <usesdevicedependencies>
    <usesdevice id="DCE:93a650f5-719f-4dc3-8143-fd438b94c19f" type="usesXX">
      <propertyref refid="DCE:cdc5ee18-7ceb-4ae6-bf4c-31f983179b4d" value="FRONTEND::TUNER"/>
      <structref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation">
        <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::tuner_type" value="RX_DIGITIZER_CHANNELIZER"/>
        <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::allocation_id" value="XXDevice"/>
        <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::center_frequency" value="100000000"/>
        <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::bandwidth" value="128000"/>
        <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::sample_rate" value="256000"/>
        <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::group_id" value=""/>
        <simpleref refid="FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::rf_flow_id" value=""/>
      </structref>
    </usesdevice>
  </usesdevicedependencies>

How is the best way to allocate FrontEnd Tuner?

Answer 1

There isn't really a 'best' way to allocate a frontend tuner device. It really just depends on which way makes the most sense for your specific scenario.

The two examples you provided are valid ways of allocating a frontend tuner via XML, but there's another option (using python) that may help clarify what is going on under the hood.

Assuming your device is already running:

from ossie.utils import redhawk
from ossie.cf import CF

# Attach to the domain
domain = redhawk.attach("REDHAWK_DEV")

# Locate your FEI device
myFEIDevice = None
for device in domain.devices:
    if device.name == "myFEIDevice":
        myFEIDevice = device

# Sanity check
if not myFEIDevice:
    raise Exception("Unable to locate myFEIDevice!")

At this point, your FEI device should accept an allocateCapacity(tunerRequestProps) call:

from ossie.utils import uuid

# Setup tuning variables
allocationId = str(uuid.uuid4())
tunerType = "RX_DIGITIZER_CHANNELIZER"
centerFreq = 100e6
sampleRate = 48000.0
sampleRateTol = 10.0
bandwidth = 16000.0
bandwidthTol = 10.0
deviceControl = False
groupId = ""
rfFlowId = ""

# Setup allocation request properties
props = []
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::tuner_type", tunerType))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::allocation_id", allocationId))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::center_frequency", centerFreq))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::bandwidth", bandwidth))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::bandwidth_tolerance", bandwidthTol))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::sample_rate", sampleRate))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::sample_rate_tolerance", sampleRateTol))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::device_control", deviceControl))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::group_id", groupId))
props.append(CF.DataType("FRONTEND::tuner_allocation::rf_flow_id", rfFlowId))

# Setup tuner request struct properties
fe_alloc_props = {}
fe_alloc_props["FRONTEND::tuner_allocation"] = props

# Attempt to allocate your device
allocationResult = myFEIDevice.allocateCapacity(fe_alloc_props)

At this point, if the allocation was successful, you should see the allocation request is now represented in the device's frontend_tuner_status property