Difference between revisions of "S15: Tree Node using Google Protocol Buffers"

Revision as of 22:15, 22 May 2015

Grading Criteria

Tree Node: using Google Protocol Buffers

Problem Statement

Machines cannot afford to send and receive large chunk of data among each other. There is a burning need of faster and lighter way of data serialization in the world of internet of things.

Basec Questions Asked:

1. What kind of protocol to use to transmit serial data ?
2. Efficient method for storing and exchanging the data

Our Solution

Google protocol buffers is the best available way of data serialization between servers. By implementing lighter and micro controller compatible version of GPB - nanoPB - we created a faster and better machine to machine communication network. Google Protocol buffers provides neutral and efficient way of serializing structured data for the use in communication protocols.

Abstract

This project is to implement google protocol buffers for serialization of the data. In this main role of protocol buffers is to encode the data before sending it out via nordic wireless communication and decoding the received data on the receiver side.

• This project mainly focuses on Following topics:
  

  nanoPB
  • Studying different types of Protocol Buffers (GPB)

      Google Protocol Buffers
      Nano PB 
      Flat Buffers

• Implementing Nordic wireless communication between different boards by using these implemented google protocol buffers.

• Studying network architecture - Tree Achitecture

Objectives & Introduction

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Team Members & Responsibilities

• Aditya Bankar
  

• Aniruddha Kawade
  

• Shreeram Gopalakrishnan

• Vinod Pangul
  

Project Schedule

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* Decision on all required modules and placing the order online. 
* Research on Google Protocol Buffers

* Environment setup of Google Protocol Buffer on windows 
and accomplish an example task such as hello world.

*  Nordic Wireless: Ping Test between two SJOne boards.

* Nordic wireless all development and testing for 2-3 
SJOne Boards.
* Successful implementation of nanoPB ( GPB variant)

* Start code development for LCD module.
* Testing Code via Google Protocol Buffers.

* Integration of all modules with parallel testing.

* Integration of the code with Google Protocol Buffers.

*  Final Testing and integration of additional features 
if time permits.

*  Final Demo Day

Parts List & Cost

Following are the components and modules required for this project.

Parts List & Cost

Design & Implementation

Google Protocol Buffers

Protocol Buffers was developed by Google for serializing data.

So, what is Serialization? According to Wikipedia, "serialization is the process of translating data structures or object state into a format that can be stored (for example, in a file or memory buffer, or transmitted across a network connection link) and reconstructed later in the same or another computer environment". Google Protocol Buffers is one of the methods used for serializing. The other famous method is XML. But, the main advantage of using Google Protocol Buffer over XML is that it is light weight, which makes it fast. It also has an easier implementation.

Currently, GPB has extended support for many programming languages, but C++, Java and Python are widely used.

GETTING STARTED

The first step for us was to install the package available in https://github.com/google/protobuf/ and follow the instructions given in it. We first tried it in Windows Operating System. Because we were not able to successfully install in Windows, we moved to Linux.

Windows Installation (Unix terminal)

The SJSU development package consists of a folder MSYS inside MINGW. The proto compiler is the most important thing and it was downloaded from https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/downloads. It isused to compile .proto files which produces pb.h and pb.cc files. The protoc binary executable file was then placed inside the bin folder and its path defined in the environment variables. Msys is a unix like terminal used for configuring and building of applications which depend on Unix tools. The below steps for installing GPB were followed -

• Double click on ./autogen.sh. It will run in command prompt. This will generate a gtest folder. It consists of configure files, source code and libraries.
• Now in another window, open msys.bat file to start the unix like terminal.
• Navigate to the gtest folder and run ./configure
• This takes time and checks for gcc compatibility. Also, make sure that your antivirus is temporarily off. If not, the configure file may not be executed successfully and it will give errors like gcc configured
• Once configure runs successfully, type 'make' and execute it.
• After executing make, type 'make install' and execute it. Here is where, we faced issues.

The error screenshot is below -

Make install error

After posting on various google groups, we found out that, support has not yet been released for installing GPB with MinGW in Windows. Although, in Windows Visual Studio could have been used, we tried to use eclipse plugins to compile and run.

Windows Installation (Eclipse) The plugin to download was available in https://code.google.com/p/protobuf-dt/wiki/Installing. The steps required to follow in eclipse are -

• Xtext and protobuf-dt is installed from http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/tmf/xtext/updates/composite/releases/. This is a descriptor i.e. highlights the keywords. To install the given link in Eclipse -
  • Inside the Eclipse CDT, click on 'Help' -> 'Install New Software'. A new dialog box opens where you will have to copy paste the link and click on 'Add'. The software finds the required plugins and you can complete the installation.
  • This can be similarly done for 'protobuf-dt' plugin.

Plugin update in eclipse

• After installing the plugin, we check if the option 'Protocol Buffers' is present in Windows -> Preferences. As seen in the below figure, we will use protoc in PATH variable and descriptor.proto location is given. Under the Options tab , Gen-C++ is checked so that after compiling, C++ src-gen (Source) is generated.

Protocol Buffer in eclipse Main tab

Protocol Buffer in eclipse Options tab

Hardware Design

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Project's Functional Diagram

Hardware Interface

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Software Design

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Implementation

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Testing & Technical Challenges

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My Issue #1

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Conclusion

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Project Video

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Project Source Code

• Sourceforge Source Code Link

References

Acknowledgement

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References Used

List any references used in project.

• Google's Nanopb web: http://koti.kapsi.fi/jpa/nanopb/docs/concepts.html
• Nanopb API references: http://koti.kapsi.fi/jpa/nanopb/docs/reference.html

Appendix

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