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Waypoint Arrival Confirmation
#1
Back in the early 90's there was this thing about decoupling application logic from the UI logic, and one solution was to work with what was called a blackboard: a common data store that both UI and application could read from, and write to. The signalk infrastructure of pypilot is an excellent example of such a blackboard. Basically, both lcd.py and ray.py interfaces are able to steer, and react upon, the underlying autopilot logic, through signalk. A loosely coupled interface, we would say today.

The problem that I had to solve was that the pypilot design did not include waypoint arrival confirmation logic. I think it should, and allow me to elaborate why. For me it is unacceptible that my autopilot changes heading without my consent. I might be having a nap, be making coffee, be on the radio with a near range oil tanker, or be waving at a sailboat that is sailing abeam of me. I may be reaching and a heading change might cause an accidental gybe, or a heading change might run me into the sailboat or the oil tanker.

OpenCPN, providing RMB or APB messages, does not forewarn waypoint arrivals. You could rely on waypoint arrival radius (e.g. RMB Arrival Status), but if you pass the waypoint beyond that radius the plotter will flick to the next track without warning anyway. What you (Sean) have done in the OpenCPN autoroute plugin takes waypoint anticipation to a whole new level, which is really brilliant, but too brilliant for my taste, because it makes my concern even bigger: instead of implicitly warning me with an abrupt heading change, it sort of secretly sneaks into a new heading now. Now you could build some waypoint confirmation mechanism in the autoroute plugin, but there's more. Firstly, this interface is not loosely coupled, and secondly it relies on OpenCPN not crashing. Normally an autopilot will maintain heading when a plotter conks out. Now it seems reliant on some plotter plugin inside the cabin that I cannot reach from the cockpit.

In ray.py I used an ugly file-based mechanism for nmea.py to notify my UI of a) the fact that there is a waypoint change, and b) what direction that waypoint change is. This file-based mechanism will not work on a separate piece of (ECD) hardware, so this notification would need to be make use of the signalk blackboard. Indeed, as you say, a separate mode could achieve this. I can imagine, however, that introducing a new mode could have a vast impact on the whole pypilot application. 

So I would suggest the following:
  • a config boolean e.g. 'enable_waypoint_confirmation', defaulting to false.
  • in nmea.py logic that puts the autopilot in 'compass' mode IF waypoint id changes, current mode is 'gps' and waypoint confirmation is enabled. The last commanded heading should be maintained.
  • the same logic should also fill a new variable in signalk, e.g. 'waypoint', that is filled with information about the new waypoint. As a minumum I would like to know whether the new waypoint is left or right, so I know where to look.
  • the UI should then monitor that waypoint variable and the ui builder can then eat his heart out with bells or whistles in notifying the skipper about the waypoint.
  • when the skipper confirms the waypoint change, the ui should put the autopilot back in 'gps' mode and possibly clear the waypoint variable.
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Messages In This Thread
Waypoint Arrival Confirmation - by ironman - 2020-02-27, 01:31 PM
RE: Waypoint Arrival Confirmation - by ironman - 2020-02-29, 07:45 PM
RE: Waypoint Arrival Confirmation - by ironman - 2020-02-27, 07:40 PM
RE: Waypoint Arrival Confirmation - by tkurki - 2020-02-28, 12:17 PM
RE: Waypoint Arrival Confirmation - by ironman - 2020-02-28, 11:57 PM
RE: Waypoint Arrival Confirmation - by johnm - 2020-03-03, 02:24 AM

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