Gen 1 Software

STINGR (Stack Transmission & Inter-Nodal Gesture Repository is the primary software suite used within the HONEY architecture for communication between boards in a HONEY flight stack.

STINGR allows boards in the flight stack to do a number of critical operations and provides a large number of utilities for FTC's, providing an easy-to-use interface that masks the complexity of CAN Bus transmissions from developers. The STINGR library is primarily comprised of operations called Gestures -- any request or response on the CAN Bus is referred to as a Gesture. Gestures are comprised of a series of frames, which provide the following information for each transmission: Type (Request/Response), Source Identifier, Destination Identifier, Data, State Flags, and Checksum.

Gesture Specification

As mentioned above, a Gesture consists of a series of frames, each with a specific purpose. Each Gesture is transmitted on the CAN Bus, and allows all boards to determine if a Gesture is targeted towards them, and act appropriately. This section defines the specification of a Gesture, including a description of each of the frames.

More explicitly, a Gesture looks as so, with the leftmost frames being transmitted first, and the rightmost frames being transmitted last.

Type (Req/Resp)

Source Identifier

Destination Identifier

Data

State Flags

Checksum

Type Frame

The Type frame, the first frame in a Gesture, is a 1 bit frame that determines whether a Gesture is a request from one board to another, or a response from one board from a prior request. This frame is a 0 for a request, and a 1 for a response.

Source & Destination Identifiers

The Source & Destination Identifiers, the second and third frames in a Gesture, are 8 bit frames that indicate the source of the Gesture. Each board developed for the HONEY architecture is catalogued and given a unique identifier code. These unique identifiers allow boards to identify who a request or response from, and respond accordingly. Note that each unique board is given a unique identifier -- The Count, the first HONEY-compliant avionics board, has the identifier of 0, but a subsequent revision of avionics would acquire a new identifier code. This allows boards to be aware of the specific revisions that are flying in the stack -- allowing them to dynamically take advantage of the utilities of newer boards as they are added. The identifiers are encoded into the STINGR suite, and one can call a simple function to determine what board was the source or destination, without memorizing or encoding any of these identifiers in local board code.

The following are the current identifier codes, as of writing (June 21, 2017).

The Count (Gen 4 Avionics)	00000000
Biscuit (Gen 2 BMS)	00000001
Macaw (Gen 1 Radio)	00000010