This is the MIDAS/TMFE frontend equipment for an Arduino-based watchdog over TCP.

The frontend manages ODB settings for arming/disarming the watchdog and configuring a 64-bit channel mask. It periodically polls the device for triggered channels and publishes readback + per-channel variables to ODB.

Full documentation here.

Requirements

Confirmed to run on standard Linux DAQ systems (Ubuntu 22.04 and similar).

Requires cmake >= 3.10.

Requires a working MIDAS installation (TMFE framework) and the MIDASSYS environment variable to be set.

Submodules

No external communication libraries are required.

TCP communication is implemented directly in this repository (SimpleTcpClient).

Compilation

If MIDASSYS is configured correctly, a full build should work via

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

Usage

The frontend executable is fearduino_wd.

It registers the equipment as ARDUINO_WD and polls the watchdog at a fixed period. Connection and control are performed via ODB settings under /Equipment/ARDUINO_WD/Settings.

This frontend uses TCP only (host/port are configured in ODB).

./fearduino_wd

Protocol

Device-side protocol notes:

Commands are ASCII lines terminated with CRLF.
Replies are line-based and end with an END line.

Commands used by the frontend:

ARM / DISARM : Arm/Disarm specific pins
MASK 0x%08X%08X (MaskHi then MaskLo) : Mask the unmonitored pins
CLEAR : Clear all triggered pins
TRIGGERED : Find the triggered pins

ODB Structure

ODB layout (relative to /Equipment/ARDUINO_WD/):

Settings

Settings/Host (string) - hostname or IP of the watchdog (default: watchdog01)
Settings/Port (string) - TCP port (default: 5000)
Settings/Armed (int 0/1) - arm/disarm request
Settings/MaskLo (DWORD) - channel mask bits 0..31
Settings/MaskHi (DWORD) - channel mask bits 32..63
Settings/Clear (int 0/1) - write 1 to request CLEAR (frontend resets to 0 after successful clear)

Readback

Readback/Status (string) - connection/state summary (Connected, ARMED, DISARMED, error text, etc.)
Readback/TriggeredPins (string) - human-readable summary, e.g. CH3 PIN12; CH9 PIN7

Variables

All arrays are length 64 (channels 0..63):

Variables/Triggered (int[64]) - 1 if channel currently triggered else 0
Variables/TriggeredPin (int[64]) - pin number for the channel or -1 if not triggered
Variables/FirstMS (DWORD[64]) - first trigger time (ms) reported by device
Variables/LastMS (DWORD[64]) - last trigger time (ms) reported by device

Notes

The frontend reconnects automatically when Settings/Host or Settings/Port changes, or when the TCP connection drops.
After reconnect, ARM/MASK are re-applied to restore device state.
Receive operations use a socket timeout to avoid blocking indefinitely.