Instrument panels mechanism allows for creation of new tabs with improvised set of instruments designed for efficient operation of devices connected to satellite bus.

Instrument panels may be adjusted for efficient operation of certain device. Depending on user’s preferences there may be located instruments for analysis of the incoming telemetry data from device, generation of required management commands or command sets for device’s operational management including without use of command queue window. For example, of the layout of panel see the Figure below.

There supplied three types of instruments:

• Diagrams (Plots);
• Field values monitoring (Watch);
• Command sending buttons (Actions).

Instrument Panel menu includes such items:

• Enable/Disable – activation of data reception, at Enable – there continued the building of plot via data received, at Disable – plotting stopped;
• Add – add new plot to panel (see Chapter 3.8.3);
• Panel – export the panel to file of racks\*.hir type;
• Plots – Autoscale mode setting, with automatic scaling of Plots.

To create new panel, you should choose «Window - New instrument panel» menu, upon which there will be displayed dialog window for entering new panel name:

In input window you should specify:

• Object name – panel’s name;
• Location – initial location of panel at HA SW main window (may be changed later).

Upon entering the data, press OK. New instrument panel will be displayed inside the HA SW main window.

Upon creation of the new panel there will be available menus designed for management elements insertion. To create the plot via field you should adjust plots’ output area; it performed via instrument’s panel «Add - CustomPlot…» menu, via entering values to dialog window fields.

Where:

• Title – print area name;
• Legend – show legend on plot;
• X axis name – displayed name of X axis;
• Y axis name – displayed name of Y axis;
• Store points – number of points to plot (high values may cause problems for performance at fast data flow);
• Visible points – number of visible points.

Upon entering the data, press OK.

At the Fields commands panel there become active context menu items for displaying parameters values at instrument panel. You should open at Fields panel the command that includes the fields with parameter the value of which must be displayed.

Right-click at the input field of the required value will open context menu. At choosing Add to plot item there will be opened the list of generated instrument panels and their elements – plots and fields of the last Watch value. Click on corresponding plot or on Watch field.

To set command button at instrument field, right-click at corresponding command at Fields panel.

In the context menu opened, choose Add to rack item. There will be opened the list of instrument panels; choose from it the panel where command button will be set. The same way you may set the command button from Queue panel.

For new button you should specify the name in the displayed window.

New buttons will be set at instrument panel; first 10 buttons will be assigned with «hot keys» from «0» to «9» keys (digits at main keyboard).

Configured instrument panel may be saved to file; to do so, choose «Panel - Export…» in instrument panel , than choose file name. The file will have «.hir» extension.

Upon software loading there will be automatically loaded the panels which *.hir files are stored in \Resources\Racks folder. On errors during loading, the error description will be displayed in message window, and problem elements will not be displayed at instrument panel. Errors usually arise when loading panel was created with other set of satellite files and device protocols.

Data reception activation on panel performed via pushing Enable/Disable menu. Upon HA SW start, all panels are active. At high data flow and operation of several active panels with plots there may raise performance problems.

To reduce the HA SW load it is recommended to not display simultaneously many panels, but configure them as tabs. Also you can switch off unused panels, or disable Autoscale mode for plots.

Any panel’s added elements may be deleted from context menu. The panels itself may be disembarked from the software via Window - Destroy dock widget menu.

Drawing area supports such functions:

• Plot scaling (bot axes or one axis);
• Area name and axis names edit, via double-click;
• Automatic scaling (menu Plots – Autoscale);
• Legend – show/hide/move descriptions for plots;
• Save plot – saving the current drawing to graphic file (png, jpeg, pdf, bmp);
• Save plot data - saving the data of chosen drawing to .csv file (attention: loading of high volume of data may take some time);
• Refresh plot – redrawing of the plot;
• Clear data – clear plot’s data;
• Change data depth – number of points on the plot;
• Remove all graphs – deletion of existing plots;
• Remove Custom plot element – deletion of field plotted.

To get accurate value for the chosen point of the plot you should highlight plot and create marker at the point of interest via double-click. At the status line there will be displayed the value for this point.

Command send buttons may be configured for sending one or several commands. For the latter, between commands that are sent there will be inserted 1 ms pause. Set of commands corresponding to the button may be viewed via “clue” displayed at pointing the cursor at button area.

Upon adding the buttons to panel, the first 10 buttons will be aligned with «hot keys» specified in brackets after button name. Upon pressing the hot key, there will be sent the same sequence that will be send via click on button. Action will confirmed via message displayed in message window. For the correct operation of “hot keys”, there required that cursor is focused at button area during the moment of pressure.

It allows for the fast monitoring of the last value for the field chosen at instrument panel. It is recommended to be used for the fields that are seldom changing its values.