ComQueue Enhancements

[gcgandhi]

F´ Version
Affected Component	ComQueue

---

Feature Description

1. Ability to open/close/clear downlink queues
2. Ability to change downlink rate.

Rationale

These features have proven to be invaluable on large scale flagship missions and I anticipate being import for future larger F-prime projects. Regularly used both in testing and OPs.

[LeStarch]

@gcgandhi would you elaborate a bit more on these items? e.g. what is the function of new queues?

The current architecture ties the flow rate to the radio allowing the radio to control when new packets are sent. What does downlink rate mean given this context?

[gcgandhi]

1. In flagship missions we can control whether DPs, EHA, EVRs are actually drained from their downlink queue. Typically the DP queue is disabled by default and must be enabled by ground command. In both OPs and testing it is useful to be able to control this, in order to not overwhelm downlink particularly in low rate scenarios or small comm passes. Being able to clear I have only used in testing, but I anticipate they use it in OPs (but don't know the details).
2. Changing the downlink rate mainly involves having a ground command to be able to update the particular hardware appropriately. Flagship missions have used a TIF FPGA that maintains a register for this, but it would obviously vary from mission to mission. FSW also does various actions to gracefully change rates if trying to not lose data, etc. So a lot of this is mission/hardware specific.