Guide

At present, tests are only run against the Tango device test context and not against the simulator which are available through the chart deployment.

Environment

In order to use or develop ska-ser-test-equipment, you need to be in a suitable SKAO development environment, with tango installed.

For developers who use vscode, a remote container configuration is provided.

Minikube

If you haven’t set up minikube yet, please follow the instructions under ska-cicd-deploy-minikube

The test-chart deployment will automatically spin up a device simulator for each device instance selected. In your local minikube environment enter the ska-ser-test-equipment directory then use the following instructions

# if you run docker
me@local:~/ska-ser-test-equipment$ eval $(minikube -p minikube docker-env)
# or if you run podman
me@local:~/ska-ser-test-equipment$ eval $(minikube -p minikube podman-env)
me@local:~/ska-ser-test-equipment$ make oci-build # build the container image
me@local:~/ska-ser-test-equipment$ make k8s-install-chart
me@local:~/ska-ser-test-equipment$ make k8s-watch # Ctrl-C to quit
me@local:~/ska-ser-test-equipment$ kubectl -n ska-ser-test-equipment exec --stdin --tty ska-tango-base-itango-console  -- itango3
Defaulted container "itango" out of: itango, check-dependencies-0 (init)
ITango 9.3.3 -- An interactive Tango client.

Running on top of Python 3.7.3, IPython 7.21 and PyTango 9.3.3

help      -> ITango's help system.
object?   -> Details about 'object'. ?object also works, ?? prints more.

IPython profile: tango

hint: Try typing: mydev = Device("<tab>

In [1]: d = Device("test-itf/siggen/1
                     sys/access_control/1 sys/tg_test/1
                     sys/database/2       test-itf/siggen/1
                     sys/rest/0           test-itf/siggen/2
                     <unknown>

Taranta GUI

If you have Taranta running as part of your chart deployment, you can upload an example dashboard file provided in this repository’s dashboards directory. You will need to log into taranta (credentials are available in its documentation) to do so. This will connect to the two Signal Generator devices running against the simulator.

Example Taranta dashboard for signal generators

Example dashboard

Deployment in a Test Facility

The SKA Test Equipment Helm Chart will be a part of the system (ITF) deployments. As an example how to customise the chart deployment, two basic facility-specific values-<TELESCOPE>-itf.yaml files are included. Modify as needed, and use as follows to override the test-parent chart values.

me@local:~$ make k8s-install-chart VALUES=--values=charts/values-low-itf.yaml

The Low ITF values file specifies extra Kubernetes resources for the test equipment pods, e.g. skao.int/signal-generator-01. These resources control exclusive access to the test equipment and are are defined by the SpookD device plugin, which is configured and deployed by the Ansible playbooks in ska-cicd-deploy-low-itf.

Running the tests

To run the test suite:

me@local:~$ make python-test

For each test, the device(s) to be tested will be deployed in a lightweight Tango test context, and then the test will be run in that context.

It is also possible to run the functional (BDD) tests against a full Tango system, in which the device(s) to be tested are already deployed. This can be done either by providing the --true-context option to pytest:

me@local:~$ pytest --true-context tests/functional

or by setting the TRUE_TANGO_CONTEXT environment variable:

me@local:~$ TRUE_TANGO_CONTEXT=yep pytest tests/functional

Testing against hardware

If running tests in an environment where hardware is available to test against, provide environment variables that specify the address for the model:

me@local:~$ TSG4101A_ADDRESS=telnet:localhost:10000 make python-test

and the tests will be run against the hardware as well as against a simulator.

Supported devices

This repository currently supports a range of hardware models (arbitrary waveform generators, signal generators, spectrum analysers).

Arbitrary Waveform Generator:

  • Tektronix AWG5208

Programmable Attenuator:

  • Mini Circuits RC4DAT-6G-95

Signal Generators:

  • Aimtti TGR2051

  • Rohde & Schwarz SMB100A

  • Tektronix TSG4104A

Anritsu Spectrum Analysers:

  • Anritsu MS2090A (trace data not yet available)

Tektronix Spectrum Analysers:

  • Tektronix RSA5103B

  • Tektronix SPECMON26B

Switch Matrices:

  • Mini Circuits RC-2SP6T-A12

  • Mini Circuits ZTRC-4SPDT-A18

  • Mini Circuits ZTRC-8SPDT-A18

SCPI interface definitions

ska-ser-test-equipment endeavours to make it easy to support different hardware models, by declaratively defining SCPI interfaces using a YAML file. The format is currently quite rudimentary: it simply maps the expected attributes to SCPI field names, and specifies the field type. Note, the specific implementation of scpi can be found in ska-ser-scpi. For example:

model: TSG4104A
poll_rate: 0.1
timeout: 0.5
supports_chains: yes
sentinel_string: "\r\n"
attributes:
  identity:
    read:
      field: "*IDN"
      field_type: str
      value: Tektronix,TSG4104A,s/nC010133,ver2.03.26
  reset:
    write:
      field: "*RST"
  frequency:
    read_write:
      field: FREQ
      field_type: float
      unit: Hz
      min_value: 950000
      max_value: 4000000000
      absolute_resolution: 0.0001 # User guide says "extraordinary frequency resolution (1 μHz at any frequency)"
  power_dbm:
    read_write:
      field: AMPR
      field_type: float
      unit: dBm
      absolute_resolution: 0.3 # User guide says "Typical ±0.30 dB amplitude accuracy (0 dBm CW signal at 22 ºC) from 100 MHz to 6 GHz"
  rf_output_on:
    read_write:
      field: ENBR
      field_type: bool
  query_error:
    read:
      field: "*ESR"
      field_type: bit
      bit: 2
  device_error:
    read:
      field: "*ESR"
      field_type: bit
      bit: 3
  execution_error:
    read:
      field: "*ESR"
      field_type: bit
      bit: 4
  command_error:
    read:
      field: "*ESR"
      field_type: bit
      bit: 5
  power_cycled:
    read:
      field: "*ESR"
      field_type: bit
      bit: 7

To register a new interface definition, create a new YAML file, and then add it to the initialiser of InterfaceDefinitionFactory.