VEGAS Pulsar Project Meeting: 2015 February 23rd 2:00 - 3:00pm ET

Room / Connection Details

• GB-137 / Soc 280
• 192.33.117.12##7144
• 434-817-6443

Housekeeping Details

• Main wiki page
• gbsapp Mailing List
• Location and regular date and time of meeting - agreed weekly on Mondays; GB-137 / Soc-280; 2-3pm ET
• ETK codes:
  • Electronics: 432510.GB3015
  • Software: 893252.GB3015
  • Science: 432540.GB3015

Resource Allocations

FORD, JOHN	0.10
MCCULLOUGH, RANDY	0.25
RAY, JASON	0.25
BLOSS, MARTY	0.1
BRANDT, JOE	0.2
CREAGER, RAY	0.8
MELLO, MELINDA	0.1
RICHMOND DECKER, JUSTIN	0.5
BATES, SAM	0.25
DEMOREST, PAUL	0.25
PRESTAGE, RICHARD	0.1

• Some of the electronics group intern Arindam Sengupta, , to share tasks with Randy and Jason.

Present

• Mark, Justin, Randy, Jason, Melinda, Paul, Ryan, Richard, Sam, Ray, Marty, Scott

Agenda

Software Development Priorities

The following is a proposal for discussion.

The firmware group and testing group can make considerable progress with the Dealer/Player software. So, urgent upgrades of the VEGAS Manager are not vital. However, I (RichardPrestage) feel like it would be worthwhile starting this software development as soon as possible. I understand the desire would be to do this in an "agile" fashion, although I think some upfront specification is required. Not necessarily in the following order, I think we need to do the following:

• Start a framework of a Coherent Pulsar Backend within the VEGAS Manager
• Specify what additional parameters will be required in the Manager. As far as possible, these should be existing parameters, but we may need new ones. Hopefully, this would largely be a matter of mapping guppi.xx parameters to vegas.xxx parameters
• Add these to the VEGAS Coordinator / Manager
• Build a fully functioning Manager, utilizing DIBAS HPC software and PSRFITS writing threads
• Add any required functionality to the config_tool
• Test the Manager with the existing BOF files
• At a later date, upgrade the Manager to use the Matrix framework

Discussion:

• We agreed that this work should start now. Justin will be developing the Manager.
• Pulsar modes will be developed on a branch of VEGAS, synced up as necessary.
• Ray will add stories in PT as necessary.
• MRs will be written to provide requirements.
• We agreed at this point to start with the paramaters required for the Manager; config_tool keywords will be addressed later.
  • Action: Paul to take the lead on an MR describing the required parameters.
• "Mode" will become a character string, and use the naming convention discussed earlier.
  • Action: Richard to resend link to previous discussions.
• We agreed that the character strings for the config_tool keyword for the number of channels (e.g. "medium-low") should be deprecated. Interger values (e.g. 512) are currently accepted, and this convention will be used for VPM.
  • Action: Melinda to find Joe's earlier document on required pulsar parameters.

VEGAS Pulsar Mode Simulator

• VegasPulsarModeSimulator
• Complete. AP and synthesizer can be connected as necessary.
• Currently need to run as monctrl
• Action: Ray to provide appropriate workaround (e.g. using public keys).

Initial Commissioning Tests

• VegasPulsarCommissioningTests
• Goal is to specify a suite of commissioning tests which Ryan/Sam/Paul can then execute
• I would like to obtain an estimate (even if uncertain) of the fte effort / elapsed time necessary to completely test a single mode.

Dual backend operation

• VegasPulsarDualBackendOperation
• Please see latest version of above wiki page.

Date / Time of Next Meeting

• Next meeting Monday 2nd March at 2pm ET

-- RichardPrestage - 2015-01-24