Galil Motion HCD Prototype

A prototype Hardware Control Daemon (HCD) for Galil motion controllers, built with the TMT Common Software (CSW) framework.

This is a working prototype for the TMT Alignment and Phasing System (APS) Instrument Control Software (ICS), implementing the CSW interface to Galil DMC-500 controllers.

Architecture

The HCD is a thin orchestrator — motion algorithms live in embedded DMC programs on the Galil controller, not in the HCD. The HCD's responsibilities are:

• Load and verify embedded programs on the controller
• Execute programs by name (XQ) with dynamic thread allocation
• Monitor controller state via QR binary data records (adaptive polling)
• Publish CSW CurrentState events for Assemblies to observe

The HCD actor architecture consists of a ControllerInterfaceActor (all Galil I/O), InternalStateActor (central state repository with dual-channel pub/sub), StatusMonitor (adaptive-rate QR polling), CommandHandlerActor (command dispatch with per-command CommandWatcherActors), and CurrentStatePublisherActor (CSW event publishing with reactive state-transition notifications).

Hardware details (motor type, limit switches, position source) are read directly from the controller during initialization.

Subprojects

Module	Description
galil-hcd	HCD implementation — actor architecture, command handling, state management, embedded program verification
galil-io	Low-level Galil communication library (TCP, binary QR DataRecord parsing)
galil-assembly	Assembly that talks to the Galil HCD
galil-client	Client applications for the Galil assembly or HCD
galil-simulator	Galil device simulator (subset of commands)
galil-repl	Interactive command-line client for direct Galil commands
galil-deploy	Deployment configuration (HostConfig, ContainerCmd)

Technology Stack

• Scala 3 (3.6.4)
• CSW 6.0.0 (Common Software for TMT)
• Apache Pekko 1.1.3 (actor framework)
• sbt 1.10.6 (build system)
• Java 21 (required)

Prerequisites

• Java 21 — java -version to verify
• sbt — See sbt setup
• CSW Services — Required for running the HCD standalone (not needed for unit tests). See CSW installation.

Building

sbt clean compile
sbt stage

After sbt stage, start scripts are generated in ./target/universal/stage/bin/.

Running the HCD

With Simulator

The simulator uses GalilHcdSim.conf so it registers under a distinct prefix (aps.ICS.HCD.GalilMotion.Sim) and serves the HMI on port 9090.

# Terminal 1: Start the Galil simulator
sbt "galil-simulator/run"

# Terminal 2: Start CSW services
csw-services start

# Terminal 3: Build and launch the HCD against the simulator
sbt stage
./target/universal/stage/bin/galil-hcd \
  -main csw.proto.galil.hcd.GalilHcdApp \
  --local galil-hcd/src/main/resources/GalilHcdSim.conf \
  -Dgalil.config.path=GalilHcdConfig-Simulator.conf

# Open browser to http://localhost:9090

With Hardware

Hardware instance 1 registers as aps.ICS.HCD.GalilMotion.1 and serves the HMI on port 9091 (9090 + controller id).

# Terminal 1: Start CSW services
csw-services start

# Terminal 2: Build and launch the HCD against hardware
sbt stage
./target/universal/stage/bin/galil-hcd \
  -main csw.proto.galil.hcd.GalilHcdApp \
  --local galil-hcd/src/main/resources/GalilHcd.conf \
  -Dgalil.config.path=GalilHcdConfig-Hardware.conf

# Open browser to http://localhost:9091

See the galil-hcd README for configuration details, test instructions, and command documentation.

References

• CSW Documentation
• CSW Source
• CSW Example Components
• Galil DMC Programming Reference