HELAO-async is Caltech HTE group's instrument control software following HELAO design principles. This repository contains instrument drivers, API server configurations, and experiment sequences intended for use with the HELAO-core package.
- Windows is required for Galil (gclib) and Gamry (comtypes) drivers. (Tested with Windows 10 x64)
- The multi-orchestrator demo was tested on Windows 10 and Linux (Ubuntu 22.04), however the helao.py launch script will produce errors in Linux when attempting to close server processes before exiting.
- miniconda (Tested with Python 3.11.7)
- HELAO-core (Installed by setup script)
From miniconda prompt or PowerShell with an active conda profile run the following commands.
git clone https://github.com/High-Throughput-Experimentation/helao-async.git
cd helao-async
setup_env.bat
git clone https://github.com/High-Throughput-Experimentation/helao-async.git
cd helao-async
bash setup_env.sh
The helao.py script is used to validate configuration, launch, and shutdown all servers belonging to an orchestration group. Orchestration groups are defined as in the helao/config folder.
The following example will validate and launch servers with parameters defined in helao/config/demo0.yml, while also writing all monitored process IDs to pids_world.pck in the root directory:
helao.bat demo0
Exercise caution when running multiple server groups as there is currently no check for ports that are currently in-use between different config files.
| file name | file description |
|---|---|
| helao.bat | windows batch script for activating helao conda environment and running python helao.py with args |
| helao.sh | linux bash script for activating helao conda environment and running python helao.py with args |
| helao.py | main launcher script, requires config prefix or config path as first argument |
| setup_env.bat | windows batch script, sets PYTHONPATH environment variable for helao conda environment, and clones helao-core repo if not colocated alongside helao-async in parent directory |
| setup_env.sh | linux bash script, sets PYTHONPATH environment variable for helao conda environment, and clones helao-core repo if not colocated alongside helao-async in parent directory |
| switch.bat | windows batch utility script for switching helao-core and helao-async branches |
| update.bat | windows batch utility script for updating helao-core and helao-async simultaneously |
As of HELAO-async release 2023.09.28, new development branches will first be merged into "unstable" for stress testing prior to merging into "main". The "main" branch will only be used for stable releases.