Project Curacao Software Status (01/04/14)

January 3, 2014 Arduino, Arduino Software, Project Curacao, Python Raspberry Pi Software, Raspberry Pi

We are now doing system testing on the control software.  We have tested battery voltage shutdowns/startups, watchdog shutdown/startups, and alarm based shutdowns/startups.
Next, we have to test the deadman switch and add the 15W Wind Turbine.  Then the final testing begins.  We are installing in less than two months.

As of today (01/04/14), the current state of the software in Project Curacao is as follows:

– Arduino Battery Watchdog:  The watchdog is reading and reporting data back to the main software in the Pi via a serial link through level shifters.  


  1. Communication between Pi and Watchdog is now reliable.  We had a timing problem where two processes were trying to use the same serial port at the same time.
  2. Pi power control – Complete and now in system testing.  We now are putting the Pi to sleep and waking it up at appropriate times.  We have now added the code to put the Pi to sleep if the Pi batteries are close to being discharged and then wake it up appropriately if the batteries recover.  We are rewriting the voltage control code to make it more understandable and easier to test.
  3. Watchdog logging – Implemented.  Log from watchdog is now transferred to the Pi for storage in the MySQL database.
  4. Control of the wind turbine (selection between solar and turbine)

– Project Curacao Pi main program:  The main program is generating all the graphs, camera pictures, environment sensing as required.  It is also regulating the Fan automatically now.    Not yet reading log files from the Arduino Watchdog.  Next  things to be implemented:

  1. Logging Arduino Watchdog Data – complete
  2. Improving sensor error detection
  3. Wind Turbine added to the battery Charging system



 

– RasPiConnect:  We have a few more graphs and dials and buttons to implement on the RasPiConnect software, but it’s pretty close to final.  We use this all the time now to monitor what is going on in the project remotely.   We are thinking it might be good to put in a process monitor graph and reboot function.  Both are easily done. 

  1. Added support for the new RasPiConnect alarms.  
  2. Added Arduino Battery Watchdog log print and request. 

Here’s the newest main screen (1 of 6 at this point):