controls-kt/README.md

Controls.kt

Controls.kt (former DataForge-control) is a data acquisition framework (work in progress). It is based on DataForge, a software framework for automated data processing. This repository contains a prototype of API and simple implementation of a slow control system, including a demo.

Controls.kt uses some concepts and modules of DataForge, such as Meta (immutable tree-like structure) and Meta (which includes a scalar value, or a tree of values, easily convertable to/from JSON if needed).

To learn more about DataForge, please consult the following URLs:

• Kotlin multiplatform implementation of DataForge
• DataForge documentation
• Original implementation of DataForge

DataForge-control is a Kotlin-multiplatform application. Asynchronous operations are implemented with kotlinx.coroutines library.

Materials and publications

• Video - A general overview seminar
• Video - A seminar about the system mechanics
• Article - A Novel Solution for Controlling Hardware Components of Accelerators and Beamlines

Features

Among other things, you can:

• Describe devices and their properties.
• Collect data from devices and execute arbitrary actions supported by a device.
• Property values can be cached in the system and requested from devices as needed, asynchronously.
• Connect devices to event bus via bidirectional message flows.

dataforge-control-core module packages

• api - defines API for device management. The main class here is Device. Generally, a Device has Properties that can be read and written. Also, some Actions can optionally be applied on a device (may or may not affect properties).

• base - contains baseline Device implementation DeviceBase and property implementation, including property asynchronous flows.

• controllers - implements Message Controller that can be attached to the event bus, Message and Property flows.

demo module

The demo includes a simple mock device with a few properties changing as sin and cos of the current time. The device is configurable via a simple TornadoFX-based control panel. You can run a demo by executing application/run Gradle task.

The graphs are displayed using plotly.kt library.

Example view of a demo: