Subject: xFOCE review comments
From: Tom O'Reilly <[email-masked]>
To: Kent Headley <[email-masked]>, Bob Herlien <[email-masked]>, Thom Maughan <[email-masked]>, Chad Kecy <[email-masked]>, Kevin Gomes <[email-masked]>, Bill Kirkwood <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 May 2012 16:18:36 -0700

Hi everyone,

I know Kent will publish review notes soon and they'll be discussed at  
Monday's FOCE meeting. I'll be at sea on Monday, unable to attend, but  
here are some thoughts I had.

I think a few reviewer comments highlight the importance of instrument  
installation and swapping procedures:

Users want to continue acquiring data even if an instrument fails;  
i.e. don't want to shut down the entire experiment if a single  
instrument fails or must otherwise be replaced. Among other  
implications, this suggests that instrument "hot swap" capability is  
useful, either at the sensor pod or instrument level.
The maintenance frequency differs from one instrument to another. If  
the sensor pod is the basic replacement unit, this means that  
instruments must be grouped on pods such that all instruments on a pod  
should be replaced at the same time. In this scenario, some pods might  
have fewer than 3 instruments - how many serial ports are then  
required on the gateway node?

I think we should sketch out the instrument/pod replacement process in  
some detail, and how frequently replacement occurs.

Regarding the need for separate tool chains for gateway and sensor pod  
software development, Brent Roman suggests that the pod firmware be  
kept generic with no hard-coded instrument-specific logic. This  
suggests either running the drivers on the gateway, downloading  
drivers to pods at runtime, or running "universal" parameterized  
drivers on the pods.

Davey reiterated that power consumed by the pump overwhelms the other  
power draws in the system, so it seems that designing an ultra-low  
power sensor pod may be overkill.

Those are my $0.02 (until I return from the cruise anyway ;-))

Tom

------------------------------------------------
Thomas C. O'Reilly
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
7700 Sandholdt Road
Moss Landing, CA 95039
831-775-1766
[email-masked]
http://www.mbari.org
"The machine does not isolate man from the great mysteries of nature,
but plunges him more deeply into them."

     - ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY
       "Wind, Sand, and Stars" (1939)