Further desirable features

A few of the features that would be desirable are:

• Monitoring the health of the digital system (correlator) is possibly the most important in this list. One should identify the parameters that are to be monitored and define actions to be taken on specific conditions. The conditions should also get flagged in the data.
• The communication between the `acq30' and the `corr-config' is not good yet. It causes variety of problems. For example, the `acq30' has no way of figuring whether the control values that it wanted set at a given time have been set, and if so, whether at the exact time specified.

  Therefore, a better connection with a well defined protocol, must be created between `acq30' and correlator configurator in order to achieve the following goals.

  • To reduce the time delays between the time when the request is made and the time when the control values are set in the correlator.
  • To have better timing control in setting the values.
  • To be able to report back to `acq30' the errors encountered by the configurator, so that the corrective measures are initiated to counter the error, and also to allow `acq30' to flag the data appropriately.
• Communication between the program for `online control of antenna' and `data acquisition system' is truly minimal. A better ties with the `online system' is required, so that the problems in antenna pointing, or with the analog systems can be reported to the `acq30' for appropriate flagging of the data. At the moment an user has to take the log file generated by `online system' and associate such conditions to the data manually.

The critical low level tools and routines already exist for the fulfillment of the items in the list.