Proton

Proton communication protocol.

Documentation is available here

Requirements

Proton has several external requirements for both code generation and runtime usage

C

• nanopb (included): lightweight protobuf library and code generator for protonc

C++

• libboost-all-dev: Specifically for boost/asio.hpp: an asynchronous serial input/output executor
• protobuf-compiler: Used at both build-time (for generating code versions of .proto files), and as a general protobuf library for protoncpp
• libyaml-cpp-dev: For parsing bundle config files during the code generation step.

Python

• protobuf: pip package for nanopb code generator
• pyyaml: yaml file parser

Build steps

Build all C/C++ code with:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

NOTE: CMake does not check for Python packages. If you run into problems running the nanopb code generator, install the above Python dependencies in a venv

python3 -m venv venv
. venv/bin/activate
pip3 install protobuf pyyaml

Run Examples

A300

The A300 example consists of a C MCU node communicating with a C++ PC node over UDP.

Terminal 1 - MCU

./build/examples/a300/a300_mcu_c

Terminal 2 - PC

./build/examples/a300/a300_pc_cpp

J100

The J100 example consists of a C MCU node communicating with a C++ PC node over Serial.

Terminal 1 - socat

To simulate serial transport, create virtual serial ports with socat:

socat PTY,link=/tmp/ttyPC,raw,echo=0 PTY,link=/tmp/ttyMCU,raw,echo=0

Terminal 2 - MCU

./build/examples/j100/j100_mcu_c

Terminal 3 - PC

./build/examples/j100/j100_pc_cpp

Multi Node

This example consists of 3 nodes communicating with each other over both UDP and Serial. Each node is implemented in C and C++ and can be used interchangeably.

Terminal 1 - socat

To simulate serial transport, create virtual serial ports with socat:

socat PTY,link=/tmp/ttyPC,raw,echo=0 PTY,link=/tmp/ttyMCU,raw,echo=0

Terminal 2 - Node 1

Node 1 produces log bundles and sends them to both Node 2 and 3. It also receives node_name bundles from both Node 2 and 3. It communicates with Node 2 over UDP, and with Node 3 over serial.

C

./build/examples/multi_node/multi_node_1_c

C++

./build/examples/multi_node/multi_node_1_cpp

Terminal 3 - Node 2

Node 2 produces node_name bundles that it sends to Node 1, and also time bundles that it sends to Node 3. It consumes log bundles It communicates with both nodes over UDP.

C

./build/examples/multi_node/multi_node_2_c

C++

./build/examples/multi_node/multi_node_2_cpp

Terminal 4 - Node 3

Node 3 produces node_name bundles which it sends to Node 1. It consumes log bundles from Node 1, and time bundles from Node 2. It communicates with Node 1 over Serial, and Node 2 over UDP.

C

./build/examples/multi_node/multi_node_3_c

C++

./build/examples/multi_node/multi_node_3_cpp