Tried the WatchDog with simulators.

Attempted to remove the roof snooping on the weather so it would not be involved in detection. The set on the weather
field did not move the right field value into the left field. Should confirm in some way that with different weather delay thresholds between the roof and the watchdog there is only a single weather detection and park request.

The WatchDog continues to show a green status after the weather alert is raised.

First test was with telescope policy set to ignore dome, the dome policy set to ignore telescope.
The WatchDog to park both which it does. As before without the WatchDog, the mount and the roof park together.
The WatchDog outputs the "Shutdown" complete message when the roof completes parking, the telescope is still in the process of parking.

Second test was with the Dome Policy set to telescope locks. The behavior is as before without the WatchDog the telescope parks and the roof blocks with warning messages at the indi level. When the telescope has parked, the lock is removed,the roof remains open. When the roof is later manually closed the WatchDog outputs Shutdown complete and the status light on the Shutdown line turns from yellow to green. When the weather alert clears the WatchDog outputs message.

This meets expectations of detecting weather alerts and being able to effect park commands.

AIUI the idea of the new Watchdog is that it can manage the telescope/dome/ROR parking in bad weather with no intervention by the the telescope and dome/ROR drivers. The intent is that the existing auto park behaviour in the telescope and dome base drivers is removed. This means:
Telescope Dome policy in the telescope driver must be set to none.
In the ROR driver the Dome Telescope policy is set to none and AutoPark is set to Disabled.
The Ekos Observatory module has the alert and warning actions unchecked.
The scheduler need not be running.

In the WDT simulator main tab:
Weather threshold is set to 0 so that the close down happens immediately.
The trigger is set to Weather.
Shutdown has Park Dome and Park Telescope checked.
In the WDT Simulator Options tab:
The Mount Policy is set to "Mount locks. Dome must wait for mount to park before it can start the parking procedure."

Set the weather to unsafe (I start it raining).
This works as expected. The Telescope starts to park and when it reports parked the ROR starts to park. The times in the various logs bear this out. I assume that Park also closes the shutter.
Stop the rain, unpark ROR, unpark Scope.

Just a thought, should the scope be allowed to unpark when the ROR is parked? If that should be inhibited then the telescope will still need to snoop on the dome and check the dome park status. The Dome policy would still need to be available because not all users require this.

Set the Mount policy (in the WDT) to "Mount is ignored. Dome can start parking without waiting for mount to complete parking. "
Start the rain:
The telescope and ROR start to park at the same time as expected.

The telescope can be unparked and slewed to an object with the ROR parked and the weather unsafe.
Setting the Telescope Dome Policy to "Dome parking policy set to: Dome locks. This disallows the scope from unparking when dome is parked" will prevent this so it looks as if the dome snooping needs to be retained and the policy still be available for the ignore and dome locks states at least.

This seems pretty close. It seems easier to set up the observatory behaviour in the WDT than in multiple places, the only outstanding thing is preventing telescope unpark and slews when the roof is closed, that is set in the telescope driver.

I've not looked at how Ekos copes with an observatory that's closed down but even if it keeps going the equipment should be safe. Ekos can monitor the weather and do it's own orderly shut down.

Opening and starting or resuming a sequence when the weather improves probably belongs in Ekos.

Great analysis Chris. So yes as you correctly pointed out, the watchdog driver now does not manage whether parking/unparking is permitted given the policy. I think this is next step. Maybe this should pave the way to remove all the interlocks logic from dome/mount drivers and just let Watchdog manage these for those who are worried about this situation. This certainly simplifies the drivers quite a bit and they can concentrate on their core functionalities instead.

Consequently, when the user selects "Mount locks" then that means it should prevent mount from unparking if the dome is parked. Since now this is implemented in the mount driver, the unparking itself is prevented from happening in the first place. However, if we move this functionality to Watchdog, then the mount will unpark normally. However, upon detecting this, the watchdog driver would then force a park command to the mount to revert the unparking action. It's not ideal of course, but if we consider moving this logic completely outside, then this is how I see it panning out.

Thanks Jasem,

I think that the mount park lock functionality should stay in the telescope base class because it can prevent unpark and a subsequent slew before it starts. The WDT may not know that the mount has unparked for long enough that a slew into the roof is already in progress. The functionality seems to belong in the telescope base class which snoops on the dome park state. It shouldn't affect individual drivers because it's implemented in the base class.

But the mount lock UI seems to belong with the other observatory management functionility in the WDT. Is it possible to have this? The UI in the WDT but the functionality in the telescope base class. This doesn't seem to fit with the way that Indi properties are implemented.

Or is it possible to implement some sort of check functionality where the telescope and dome driver checks the WDT to see if it's OK to unpark? I suppose that's more snooping.

Chris


.

Yes that would require more snooping. I just pushed a commit that simplifies things a bit:

1. Style fixes.
2. Telescope Parking Policy --> Mount Policy
3. Dome Parking Policy --> Dome Policy
4. Removed weather handling in INDI::Dome. It should be handled by Watchdog driver or external client.
5. Simplified mount and dome locking policies:
5.1. Mount Locks: This prevents dome from parking unless mount is already parked.
5.2. Dome Locks: This prevents mount from unparking unless dome is already unparked.
5.3. All other options removed.
6. Removed INDI::Dome AutoPark, since this it does not parking on weather alert anymore.

I;ve just upgrade to StellarMate 1.5.4 and am now seeing "Cannot unpark mount when dome is locking." when trying to simply unpark my EDMOD mount. I've never seen this error message before, have never had a dome. I don't know what is causing this as I now can't image for the night if I can't get this resolved.

Where do you even check the settings for this please???

Open the INDI control, telescope panel, in the options tab. Look for Dome Policy entry and change it to Dome Ignored.

In the INDI control panel, go to your mount driver. On the Options tab, go to "Dome Policy" and set it to "Dome ignored" if you do not have a dome.

And don't forget to click Configuration --> Save afterwards.

While I was at my observatory I've been testing the roof closure while the mount is unparked (ie: in a position that would end in a roof/scope crash) and I'm pleased to see that the latest fixes are all good.
I can now stop stressing about "is the scope parked, will the roof come down crashing on the scope/mount"...

Please do make sure this dome/scope policy fix is locked in place and not changed. Thanks for all the coding work team.

Hi to all,
I'dm close to build a remote observatory so I'm doing some tests with the setup i'd like to use for it.
All seem to work fine but I have some trouble with the dome policy option of my mount (HEQ5 driven by Eqmod).
The issue is that when I try to unpark the mount (with the dome lock option activated) with the dome closed ,it rightly dosen't move, but in ekos it appear as unparked and then does not respond to any command; the only way i have to regain the control of the mount is to restart indiserver.
I've done test both with dome simulator and aldiroof witch il the driver I'm using for the observatory.
Any suggestion?

It only appears in this state in Ekos --> Mount module. But if you check the KStars toolbar, you can still unpark. You can add the telescope toolbar by going to Settings --> Toolbars shown --> Telescope

Nevertheless, I will fix the state issue in the mount module.