Release Notes for Version 14.7 (July 23rd, 2014)

  • Release 14.7 contains a new MOOS Release 10.0.2.
  • MOOS 10.0.2 has its own set of release notes, here.

pHelmIvP

  • Behaviors are augmented via an additional overloadable function, onHelmStart(), executed by the behavior upon helm startup. This allows behaviors, defined as templates and thus not spawned until later, to post info to the MOOSDB that may affect the conditions of their spawning. For example, the collision avoidance behavior posts a request for alerts of a certain form, to pBasicContactMgr.
  • BHV_AvoidCollision - fixed bug in handling marker configurations
  • BHV_AvoidObstacles - Several improvements to improve robustness against thrashing.
  • BHV_Waypoint - Added ability to configure the "next waypoint" visual point size
  • BHV_Waypoint - Added minor new capability to specify the order parameter with the with the value "toggle". To do this the Helm also had to be slightly modified to now allow successive duplicate updates messages to go through if the update string passes the case insensitive check for containing the word "toggle".
  • BHV_StationKeep - Minor mod to BHV_StationKeep to allow label colors to be set
  • BHV_RubberBand - Improvements merged from the DARPA branch
  • BHV_Trail - Modified to NOT render the trail point in the idle state
  • BHV_Trail - Udpated for idle state posting of trail distance
  • BHV_MaxDepth - Added new behavior to limit the maximum depth allowed.
  • Fixed minor bug where completed behaviors were not being retained in the list of completed behaviors between helm iterations. Now they are persistent, although an upper limit of the 50 most recently completed behaviors is enforce to ensure against unbounded memory growth.
  • Fixed issue in the helm where duplicate behavior names would result in the helm not starting, rather than the helm being in the MALCONFIG state
  • Fixed bug in IvPBehavior duration timer that caused initial durations to be erroneously long on the first invocation if duration_idle_decay is set to false
  • Bug fix to the BehaviorSet startup handler, could cause malconfig behavior to segfault on startup instead of throw an error warning on startup

pMarineViewer

  • Added wamv shape to possible lists of vehicles allowed.

pHostInfo

  • mod to pHostInfo to allow all the system commands to run in the foreground to allow them time to complete before attempt to read the tmp files

uTimerScript

  • Added option to set the script base time, the time upon which script event times are based, to be the moment when the MOOSDB started. The default remains the time when the timer script is launch. To use the new option, set time_zero=db_start in the configuration block.
  • Fixed bug where setting configuring paused=true was not being respected.
  • Fixed bug where setting delay_start=N was not being handled properly
  • Fixed bug where setting delay_reset=N was not being handled properly
  • Added ability to have the script block until another named app(s) have been detected in the DB_CLIENTS list. See the block_on parameter.
  • Added ability to add a "multi-event". For example, the line 
    event = var=VALUE, val="id=$(IDX)", time=0, amt=3

is the same as having three config lines with 

    event = var=VALUE, val="id=$(IDX)", time=0
    event = var=VALUE, val="id=$(IDX)", time=0
    event = var=VALUE, val="id=$(IDX)", time=0
  • Added further parameter checking to ensure random variables provide a legal keyname.

uSimMarine

  • Fixed bug regarding USM_SIM_PAUSED

iSay

  • New MOOS app for invoking the native speech generation utilities of OSX (the say command) and GNU/Linux (the espeak command). More info here.

lib_geometry

  • Added turnsLeft turnsRight check to the CPA engine for use in COLREGS behaviors

nsplug

  • Augmented to support #ifdef A B where B could also be an incoming MACRO. For example 
    #ifdef VNAME VNAME1 in meta_vehicle.bhv in the kasper-jake mission

uFldMessageHandler

  • minor mod to uFldMessageHandler to allow control over app casting output. User can configure whether reported successful messages are truncated or not when shown on the appcast report. No effect on messaging functionality. The parameter is "appcast_trunc_msg=75". 75 is the default. If set to 0 no truncation will be applied.

alogscan

  • Added -l,--loglist command line option to list all the logged variables in a format suitable for configuring pLogger.

aloghelm

  • Added -b,--bhvs option for showing helm behavior state changes
  • Added -m,--modes option for showing helm mode changes
  • Added --watch=bhv option to watch a particular behavior for state changes

uFldHazardSensor

  • Added ability to disable hazard resemblance factors with parameter ignore_resemblances=true
  • minor mod to regard the UHZ_SENSOR_REQUEST as a request lasting 120 seconds. Sensor user no longer needs to repeatedly post this request. Just more often than once per 120 seconds. This 120 value may become a parameter in the future. Aids in distributed uField setups where the occasional UHZ_SENSOR_REQUEST is dropped.
  • Added enforcement for max vehicle speed, above which the sensor will be off. The default value is 2.0 m/s. Adjustable with "max_vehicle_speed" parameter.
  • Augmented with the ingore_resemblances option

uXMS

  • Modified to better handle registration for all variables using the new MOOS wildcard capability. Fixed minor bug where uXMS erroneously posted a configuration warning if if the MOOS community was not provided via a mission file.

uPokeDB

  • Minor mod to handle command line args --host= and --port= in a manner more consistent with other MOOS-IvP apps.

pBasicContactMgr

  • It now accepts alert configurations via the incoming MOOS Variable BCM_ALERT_REQUEST

lib_ivpbuild

  • Minor fixes to remove extraneous semicolons in a few files, comply with stricter compiler constraints.

uLoadWatch

  • A new application to monitor the reported ITER_GAP and ITER_LEN information produced by all AppCastingMOOSApp applications. More info here.

pNodeReporter

  • Augmented to register for LOAD_WARNING messages (from the new uLoadWatch app), and include them in node reports if one is found.

MOOSGeodesy

  • With Release 14.7, MOOS-IvP is using the PROJ.4 Cartographic Projections Library rather than the MOOSGeodesy libraries distributed by Paul Newman at Oxford. The PROJ.4 libraries are actively maintained and are more correct when dealing with long distances, especially those that cut across UTM zones. To make the transition smooth, the MOOSGeodesy library distributed with MOOS-IvP is now a wrapper for PROJ.4 with the same MOOSGeodesy interface. The wrapper code was written by Toby Schneider.

Emacs MOOS Mode

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