qitech-control/docs/threading.md

Threads & Async

We utilize different threads and mix smol with tokio. Mid-term we want to get rid of tokio for the ethercat part but keep it for axum (REST) and socketioxide (SocketIO).

Threads

Main Thread from server::main::main

starts the main thread.

Has Tokio runtime which can spawn more threads on it's own.

Ethercat Interface Test Threads from server::ethercat::init::init_ethercat

Starts threads for testing different interfaces in parallel.

Uses Smol LocalExecutor.

EthercatThread from server::ethercat::init::init_ethercat

Uses thread-local tokio runtime.

Starts the Ethercrab TX/RX thread.

Runs the main control loop.

TODO: Should use realtime priority.

Ethercrab TX/RX Thread from server::ethercat::loop::setup_loop

Runs the Ethercrab TX/RX loop.

TODO: Should use realtime priority.