MONSID v4.20 - Fall 2024 release

The interesting part of creating a library is learning how your customers put the library to work. This is how we improve the API over time and it's a process that helps make MONSID easier to use and extremely adaptable. We've seen MONSID put to work on big and small systems. Our smallest deployment to date is on a processor with only 64Mb of RAM and a 474Mz ARM processor. That system was literally about the size of your thumbnail. That's pretty cool if you ask us but we've noticed something lately...

MONSID has been used in a variety of systems. Most deployments build new functionality on top of the libraries we provide. That's a great way to use the MONSID API. Recently, though, we noticed that nearly all those deployments were tackling the same issue - adding a rolling log feature for the playback recorder. In effect, we had several nearly identical, customized solutions solving the same problem.

The biggest improvement with v4.20 was aimed at tackling this problem. We created a single common interface that allows developers to incorporate rolling logs with the recorder. This makes life so much easier for our customers and reduces their dev cost.

New recording functionality offers a consistent and easy interface

Experience taught us that users with long running processes (like those running on cFS, ROS, and F´) would always take our legacy playback writer class and add a rolling log feature. It's a very nice way to extend the MONSID classes. The biggest addition in v4.20 is that we've taken the best parts of those implementations and consolidated the rolling log feature into a new set of playback writer classes. Customers no longer have to spend resources on building that feature - it's just part of the SDK. Image credit: Okean Solutions.

We took our existing recorder - cut it into two parts. One part dedicated to recording with a fancy new rolling log feature, and the other dedicated to data transfer (between playback files). Now using the new recorder with rolling log functionality simply requires setting 1 parameter, making it slimmer and more nimble. You can now incorporate only what you need. These changes make it super easy to use the new recorder within frameworks like NASA's cFS  and F´  flight software systems as well as ROS .

We also incorporated in a few other improvements in the Fall release. Some of them help with creating and managing projects and others affect the runtime performance. The main premise for v4.20 was focusing on model authoring/development experience.

MONSID SDK v4.20 improvements include:

• New set of playback writing classes
• Updated how DynamicParameters are managed in normal processing
• Updated cmake scripts to improve large project operation
• Added devcontainer example and guidelines for ROS/cFS/F` integration
• Various static analysis fixes across libraries and tools
• Updated vcpkg to 2024.08.23

Please visit monsid.com to learn more about MONSID and how state-of-the-art health assessment can be an integral part of your autonomous system.

MONSID is developed by Okean Solutions, Inc. MONSID® is a registered trademark of Okean Solutions, Inc.