Data Acquisition Full System Test Setup

Owned by Yejean Kim
Last updated: May 18, 2024
3 min read

Guide to set up the full Data Acquisition System for testing.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Connect Ethernet from laptop (server) to radio marked 'Pit'.
  2. Connect Ethernet from Pi to second radio.
  3. Place the radios as far apart from each other as possible. This is technically to prevent damage to the radios.
  4. Connect power and ground of both radios to 12V power supply (ONLY FOR TESTING). The power and ground wires are connected to the radios via an orange connector at the top. Pay attention to which one is power and which one is ground when plugging them in.
  5. Run the Data Acquisition program on the laptop with 'docker compose up'.
  6. Power on the Pi.


For testing purposes, the radios and the Pi can be powered off of a power supply or wall outlet. In the actual setup, the Pi and car radio will be powered off the low-voltage line.

Troubleshooting

If the server is unable to establish a connection to the Pi, here are a few troubleshooting tips:

  1. First, always read the error message that Docker is outputting. It may be a simple issue that you know how to fix or can find a solution to by googling. If it is a new issue, document it in this guide.
  2. Next, check your Ethernet IP address. Does it match the port that Docker is exposing? Make sure the port address in docker-compose.yaml matches your actual IP address. If it doesn't, manually change your IPv4 address in your settings and go through the setup guide again. I recommend rebooting/power cycling everything after making the change.
  3. Check the status lights on the bottom of each of the radios. They should be mostly green - all red is a bad sign and means they are not able to connect to one another. Refer to the HTP-900RE Freewave radio documentation to determine what each of the lights mean. Power cycle the radios if they are not connecting to each other.
  4. Check whether you can ping each step of the communication chain from the server. First try pinging the Pit radio, which should be directly connected to the server via Ethernet. As of 5/18/24, the IP address of the Pit radio should be 169.254.57.77, and the car radio should be 169.254.57.76. You should also be able to ping the Pi with the address raspberrypi.local.
    1. If you are not able to ping one of them, the issue could be that they are not on the same network. Remember that in order for the devices to all be on the same network, they must all have the same network address. For our case this means the first three octets of the IP address should be the same (i.e. they all start with 169.254.57.XX).
    2. If you are having network connection issues, I would recommend first making a direct Ethernet connection from the server to the Pi and checking what each IP address is. Then change the IP addresses of the radios to be in the same network. (I don't recommend changing the Pi's address because it can cause other issues.)
    3. To change the IP address of a radio, you must have a direct Ethernet connection to it from your laptop, and the IP address of your laptop must have the same three octets as the radio's IP address (i.e. if the radio is 169.254.57.77, yours should be 169.254.57.XX). From there you can enter the current IP address of the radio into your browser and it should take you to a radio setup page that lets you change the IP address. Check the Freewave radio documentation for full instructions. NOTE: If you change the IP address of a radio you must document it in this guide and/or on the radio itself so we do not lose it.




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