MOOS Documentation Guide

Documentation Guide

Below you can find a large table with links to all the documentation available. It may look a little daunting to start with, so here is simple breakdown.

Using MOOS as a Communications Layer - An Introduction

If you are a new to MOOS we suggest you read the document  ProgrammingWithMOOS. It is a step by step guide in using the MOOS libraries to build simple applications which communicate via the MOOS API and the classes contained in the core libraries MOOSLIB and MOOSGenLib. Remeber you can fetch on the Core components via svn thus:

svn co svn://login2.robots.ox.ac.uk/CoreMOOS/trunk  CoreMOOS

Understanding the MOOS Architecture

This  document explains how MOOS works under the hood. Read it if you really want to understand what is going on behind the scenes.

Using Essential MOOS Applications

In addition to the two Core Libaries (MOOSLIB and MOOSGenLib) and the central server MOOSDB, the MOOS source tree provides a few applications which are often (but not always) essential components of a MOOS installation, perhaps the two most important applications are

• pLogger provides a very configurable set of logging options. Full documentation is found here
• pAntler controls the launching of multiple processes on multiple machines via a single shared configuration file. Full documentation can be found here
• pMOOSBridge allows the "bridging" of communications between multiple MOOSDBs using tcp/ip and udp. Full documentation is here

You can download just the essential MOOS components (and the core on which it depends) via svn:

svn co svn://login2.robots.ox.ac.uk/EssentialMOOS/trunk EssentialMOOS

Using Matlab with MOOS

iMatlab is utility that can be "mexed" to allow you to communicate with other processes who are using the MOOS communications architecture from within matlab scripts. Read the documentation here

Debugging and Replaying Log Files with Graphical Tools

• uMS gives you a graphical view of the communications flowing between MOOS-enabled processes. Its an invaluable for debugging a set of communicating programs at run time.
• uPB allows you to replay logged data and essentailly re-run old missions. Again, its an invaluable tool for debugging and development.

Documentation for both uMS and uPB is here

Complete Table of Documentation

Domain	Topic	Summary		Details	Documents
			module	summary	html	pdf
Getting Started	Overview	An overview of the MOOS Architecture				yes
	Programming 101	Introduction to programming with MOOS				yes
		Example Code			yes
		Building and Linking with MOOS				yes
Applications and Libraries	Core MOOS	Minimal requirements to build a MOOS application (see also Development)	MOOSLib	The core MOOS Comms Library	yes	yes
			MOOSDB	The hub of the MOOS communicationsarchitecture		yes
			MOOSGenLib	A basic library of core MOOS utilities and classes	yes	yes
	Essential MOOS	A collection of commonly used applications especially pAntler and pLogger	pLogger	Application for logging data sent between applications		yes
			pScheduler	Application for scheduling and translating data sent between applications		yes
			pAntler	Application for starting a whole set of applications		yes
			pMOOSBridge	Application for mapping data between multiple groups of applications		yes
	Utilities/tools	Graphical tools	uMS	MOOSScope tool for visualising data flow between applications		yes
			uPB	Graphical tool for playing back logged data		yes
		Matlab interface	iMatlab	mex interface for connecting Matlab to a MOOS community		yes
		Simulation	uMVS	multivehicle marine simulator		yes
	Navigation and Control	Manual Control	iRemote	console application for controlling vehicles and common processes		yes
		Automatic Control	pHelm	Application for controlling a vehicle given a set oftasks		yes
		Navigation	pNav	Application for estimating vehicle state given multiple inputs		yes
Development	Coding	Introduction to programming with MOOS				yes
	Example Code	Example code for above coding guide			yes
	Building and Linking	Building and Linking with MOOS				yes
Architecture	Comms Architecture	An overview of the MOOS Architecture				yes
	Conventions	Description of the naming and coordinate conventions used by MOOS				yes
Class References	Core MOOS	Doxygen generated source file documentation	MOOSGenLib	Source Code documentation for low level utility library	yes	yes
			MOOSLib	Source Code documentation for Comms API library	yes	yes
Legacy				The orginal MOOS document before refactorisation		yes

Table above indexes into the various documentation supplied in the Docs subdirectory. Between releases the documents linked here may be more up to date than those in your downloaded version