Adding a New Hardware Driver

Adding a new C++ driver of an existing hardware type — a new AWG model, a new mass flow controller, a new GPIB synthesizer — is the single most common contributor task in Blackchirp. This page is the canonical recipe. It walks through picking the right interface class, the five files a driver consists of, the registration macros, the three state-management patterns the existing drivers fall into (with one worked example each), and the smoke-testing checklist before you declare the driver done.

This page assumes the type already exists. If no existing interface class matches your hardware — that is, you are adding a new abstract base alongside AWG, FlowController, and friends — see Adding a New Hardware Type. If you want to drive your hardware from a Python script rather than a C++ class, see Python Hardware for the trampoline architecture; this page covers the C++ side that any new Python trampoline still has to coexist with.

Picking the right base class

Every driver inherits from a hardware-type interface class. There are eleven of them. Pick the one that matches the role your hardware will play:

Interface class

Domain

Source directory

AWG

Chirp generation: arbitrary-waveform generator or DDS-based ramp generator that drives the CP-FTMW excitation.

src/hardware/optional/chirpsource/

Clock

RF/microwave synthesizer used as a tunable LO, AWG reference, or DR clock.

src/hardware/core/clock/

FtmwDigitizer

FTMW digitizer: the high-bandwidth oscilloscope or transient recorder that captures FIDs.

src/hardware/core/ftmwdigitizer/

LifDigitizer

LIF digitizer: the slower oscilloscope that records laser-induced-fluorescence transients.

src/hardware/core/lifdigitizer/

LifLaser

Tunable laser source for the LIF module (wavelength setpoint, optional flashlamp control).

src/hardware/core/liflaser/

FlowController

Multichannel mass flow controller, optionally with a chamber-pressure setpoint.

src/hardware/optional/flowcontroller/

GpibController

GPIB bus bridge (Prologix GPIB-LAN, GPIB-USB) that other HardwareObjects talk through.

src/hardware/optional/gpibcontroller/

IOBoard

General-purpose analog/digital I/O board for auxiliary readbacks, gate signals, and so on.

src/hardware/optional/ioboard/

PressureController

Chamber pressure gauge / pressure controller, optionally with a gate valve and pressure-control mode.

src/hardware/optional/pressurecontroller/

PulseGenerator

Multichannel pulse/delay generator that sequences gas, laser, AWG-trigger, and protection pulses.

src/hardware/optional/pulsegenerator/

TemperatureController

Multichannel temperature readout (LakeShore-style cryogenic monitor, etc.).

src/hardware/optional/tempcontroller/

The core/ vs optional/ split corresponds to whether the type is required to run an FTMW experiment (core) or genuinely optional (optional). The split is structural rather than user-facing — HardwareManager ensures every required type has at least a virtual profile so the application always has something to talk to — but it is the directory layout you have to put new files into. The directory layout is described on Architecture (source tree section).

If none of these match your hardware, the right move is almost always to add a new abstract interface class first; see Adding a New Hardware Type.

Files you will create

Every driver consists of the same touches:

  1. src/hardware/<core|optional>/<type>/<driver>.h — the class declaration. Inherits from the type’s interface class; declares Q_OBJECT; declares the constructor with the (label, parent=nullptr) signature (see below); overrides the pure virtuals the interface class requires.

  2. src/hardware/<core|optional>/<type>/<driver>.cpp — the implementation. Carries the registration macros at file scope and the constructor and method bodies.

  3. src/data/settings/hardwarekeys.h — only if the driver introduces new setting keys beyond what the interface class already declares. Add them to the appropriate BC::Key::<Domain> namespace, or declare a per-driver namespace inside the driver’s header (see BC::Key::AWG::awg70002a for the convention used by most drivers today).

  4. (Optional) REGISTER_LIBRARY invocation pointing at a VendorLibrary subclass, if the driver depends on a closed-source SDK. Authoring the library subclass itself is the topic of Vendor Libraries.

  5. (Optional) a Virtual<Driver> sibling that synthesizes plausible readings without a real instrument. Most existing drivers ship with one; see Virtual sibling below.

No CMake edits are required, in the typical case. The hardware glob in cmake/BlackchirpHardware.cmake discovers source files by filename pattern: dropping vendormodel.cpp / vendormodel.h into the right hardware-type directory under one of the recognized prefixes is enough. The recognized prefixes per directory and the AUTOMOC linkage that keeps the static-initialization registrations from being dropped at link time are documented on Build System and Project Layout (Hardware aggregator headers and Glob-based source discovery). If your vendor prefix is not yet in the list, that is the only edit required, and it is one line in each of two parallel globs. After adding files (or a new prefix) you must re-run cmake so the globs are re-evaluated; cmake --build alone will not pick up new files.

Constructor and registration macros

Every driver follows the same three-macro registration pattern at file scope in the .cpp, plus a small constructor:

// myawg.h
#include <hardware/optional/chirpsource/awg.h>

namespace BC::Key::AWG {
inline constexpr QLatin1StringView myawg{"myawg"};
inline const QString myawgName{"Vendor Model 1234 AWG"};
}

class MyAwg : public AWG
{
    Q_OBJECT
public:
    explicit MyAwg(const QString& label, QObject *parent = nullptr);
    ~MyAwg() override = default;

public slots:
    bool prepareForExperiment(Experiment &exp) override;
    void beginAcquisition() override;
    void endAcquisition() override;

protected:
    bool testConnection() override;
    void initialize() override;
};

// myawg.cpp
#include "myawg.h"
#include <hardware/core/hardwareregistration.h>

REGISTER_HARDWARE_META(MyAwg, "Vendor Model 1234 high-performance AWG")
REGISTER_HARDWARE_PROTOCOLS(MyAwg, CommunicationProtocol::Tcp,
                                    CommunicationProtocol::Rs232)
REGISTER_COMM_DEFAULTS(MyAwg, CommunicationProtocol::Tcp,
    {BC::Key::Comm::timeout,  10000},
    {BC::Key::Comm::termChar, QString("\n")})
REGISTER_COMM_DEFAULTS(MyAwg, CommunicationProtocol::Rs232,
    {BC::Key::Comm::timeout,  10000},
    {BC::Key::Comm::termChar, QString("\n")})
REGISTER_HARDWARE_SETTINGS(MyAwg,
    {BC::Key::AWG::markerCount, "Marker Count",
     "Number of physical marker output channels",
     2, 0, QVariant{}, HwSettingPriority::Required}
)

MyAwg::MyAwg(const QString& label, QObject *parent) :
    AWG(QString(MyAwg::staticMetaObject.className()), label, parent)
{
    save();
}

A few non-obvious points:

  • Driver key. The base class constructor takes an impl string as its first argument. Pass QString(MyAwg::staticMetaObject.className()) so the driver key tracks the class name automatically — renaming the class renames the registry key for free, with no parallel string table to update. The base class’s hwType is filled in similarly inside the interface-class constructor. The two together combine into the instance’s d_key ("<HardwareType>.<label>"), which is also the QSettings group root.

  • No child QObject. If the interface class sets d_threaded = true in its constructor (most do — AWG, FtmwDigitizer, and others enable threading because their I/O is expensive), the driver constructor must not have a QObject parent that lives on a different thread, and must not construct child QObjects. Construct children inside HardwareObject::initialize() instead, which the manager invokes after the move-to-thread step. The threaded-hardware constructor restriction is enforced socially, not by code, so a buggy driver compiles fine but yields hard-to-debug cross-thread parent errors at runtime. See Hardware Runtime for the move-to-thread sequence.

  • Communication defaults. Declare per-protocol read defaults (BC::Key::Comm::timeout, BC::Key::Comm::termChar) with REGISTER_COMM_DEFAULTS, once per protocol the driver supports. They are seeded into the device’s per-protocol settings group when the profile is first constructed and never overwrite a value the user has set in the Communication Settings dialog. A protocol or key with no registered default falls back to 200 ms / \n. Do not seed these from the constructor with setDefault — that writes an incorrectly-scoped top-level key. See Communication defaults in the hardware-configuration guide.

  • Settings precedence. REGISTER_HARDWARE_SETTINGS re-registers one key from the base class to override its default, bounds, or priority for this driver; you do not need to copy the whole base set. The AWG70002a example above re-registers only markerCount (the AWG70002A has two markers, the base class declares four as the generic default). The base/driver override pattern is described in Hardware Configuration (Base / driver override pattern); the macro reference and the HwSettingDef field list are on HardwareRegistry.

State-management patterns

How a driver structures its hardware-specific overrides depends on how the interface class manages the per-experiment configuration. The existing drivers fall into three patterns. Pick the one that matches the interface class’s contract; you do not get to choose the pattern on a per-driver basis.

The same three patterns appear on the Python side (Python Hardware), one driver type at a time. This page covers the C++ side; the Python documentation maps each trampoline to its pattern with the same A/B/C labels.

Pattern A — Bulk Configure. The interface class inherits from a complex config object — a DigitizerConfig with channel maps, trigger settings, sample rates, multi-record state, and so on — and exposes a configure(config&) virtual. The experiment hands the driver a desired config, and the driver applies it in one shot. IOBoard and LifDigitizer follow this pattern. FtmwDigitizer is shaped similarly but exposes the per-experiment hook directly as HardwareObject::prepareForExperiment() rather than a separate configure virtual.

Pattern B — Granular methods. The interface class contains a config object as a member and exposes per-channel or per-parameter hw* pure virtuals. The driver implements each hw* and sees only one value per call; the interface class owns the polling sequence and the validity checks. FlowController, PulseGenerator, PressureController, and TemperatureController follow this pattern.

Pattern C — Stateless / pass-through. The interface class has no internal config object to manage. The driver receives experiment data (chirp segments and markers for an AWG; frequency assignments for a Clock) at HardwareObject::prepareForExperiment() time, programs the hardware to match, and returns. There is no bulk read-back: the experiment data is the truth.

The fastest way to identify the pattern for a new driver is to read the interface class header. A configure(...) virtual is a Pattern A hint; one or more hw*-style pure virtuals (hwSetFlow, hwReadPressure, setHwFrequency) are Pattern B hints; an interface that final-overrides hwPrepareForExperiment and exposes prepareForExperiment for the driver to override is the Pattern C shape. The three worked examples below show one driver per pattern.

Worked example A — Pattern A (IOBoard)

IOBoard exposes a pure-virtual configure(IOBoardConfig&) and two pure-virtual readers. The driver applies the experiment’s analog and digital channel selections in configure, then services readAnalogChannels() / readDigitalChannels() per call:

// myioboard.h (sketch)
class MyIOBoard : public IOBoard
{
    Q_OBJECT
public:
    explicit MyIOBoard(const QString& label, QObject *parent = nullptr);

protected:
    bool testConnection() override;
    void initialize() override;
    bool configure(IOBoardConfig &config) override;
    std::map<int,double> readAnalogChannels() override;
    std::map<int,bool>   readDigitalChannels() override;
};

bool MyIOBoard::configure(IOBoardConfig &config)
{
    for (auto &[k, ch] : config.d_analogChannels)
    {
        if (!ch.enabled) continue;
        // Apply ch.range / ch.coupling to physical channel k.
        // Read back actuals; clamp ch.range, ch.coupling if needed.
    }
    for (auto &[k, ch] : config.d_digitalChannels)
    {
        if (!ch.enabled) continue;
        // Apply digital channel k's direction, level, etc.
    }
    return true; // base copies modified config into Experiment
}

The config argument is mutable: the driver should write back any clamped or coerced values so the experiment record reflects what the hardware actually applied. The base IOBoard copies the modified config into the experiment record on success.

The two read methods receive no channel selection: each call should walk the driver’s own d_analogChannels / d_digitalChannels state (inherited from IOBoardConfig) and return readings only for the channels currently enabled. The src/hardware/optional/ioboard/labjacku3.cpp driver is the canonical ground-truth driver; virtualioboard.cpp is the non-vendor sibling.

Worked example B — Pattern B (FlowController)

FlowController final-overrides HardwareObject::initialize(), HardwareObject::testConnection(), and HardwareObject::prepareForExperiment(). A driver does not override any of those; instead it implements the per-channel/ per-parameter hw* virtuals plus the small fcInitialize / fcTestConnection hooks the base class calls from its own initialize / testConnection:

// myflow.h (sketch)
class MyFlow : public FlowController
{
    Q_OBJECT
public:
    explicit MyFlow(const QString& label, QObject *parent = nullptr);

public slots:
    void   hwSetFlowSetpoint(int ch, double val) override;
    double hwReadFlow(int ch) override;
    double hwReadFlowSetpoint(int ch) override;
    void   hwSetPressureSetpoint(double val) override;
    double hwReadPressure() override;
    double hwReadPressureSetpoint() override;
    void   hwSetPressureControlMode(bool enabled) override;
    int    hwReadPressureControlMode() override;
    // Optional: override only if the hardware can enable/disable
    // individual channels. The base default is a no-op.
    void   hwSetChannelEnabled(int ch, bool en) override;

protected:
    void fcInitialize() override;
    bool fcTestConnection() override;
};

Each hw* issues a few SCPI / serial commands through p_comm (the CommunicationProtocol instance the base class built in HardwareObject::bcInitInstrument()), parses the response, and returns the value:

double MyFlow::hwReadFlow(int ch)
{
    QByteArray resp = p_comm->queryCmd(u"FLOW? %1\n"_s.arg(ch+1));
    if (resp.isEmpty())
    {
        emit hardwareFailure();
        hwError(u"No response to flow query for channel %1."_s.arg(ch+1));
        return -1.0;
    }
    bool ok = false;
    double f = resp.trimmed().toDouble(&ok);
    if (!ok)
    {
        emit hardwareFailure();
        hwError(u"Could not parse flow response: %1"_s.arg(QString(resp)));
        return -1.0;
    }
    return f;
}

The base FlowController owns the polling timer, the round-robin channel sequencing inside FlowController::poll(), the FlowController::readAll() helper, the flowUpdate / pressureUpdate signal emission, and the per-experiment validation/aux-data dispatch. The driver only sees one value at a time and never has to worry about the cadence.

A representative ground-truth driver lives at src/hardware/optional/flowcontroller/mks647c.cpp (an MKS 647C mass flow controller over RS-232 with a mksQueryCmd retry helper that compensates for an idiosyncratic firmware bug). The same directory carries virtualflowcontroller.cpp, which synthesizes plausible flow and pressure readings via QRandomGenerator and serves both as the user’s no-hardware fallback and as the test fixture.

Worked example C — Pattern C (AWG)

AWG declares no configure virtual and no hw* per- parameter accessors. A driver overrides HardwareObject::prepareForExperiment() directly: read the chirp definition out of the Experiment, compute (or upload) the waveform, program any markers, and return.

bool MyAwg::prepareForExperiment(Experiment &exp)
{
    d_enabledForExperiment = exp.ftmwEnabled();
    if (!d_enabledForExperiment)
        return true;

    const ChirpConfig &cc = exp.ftmwConfig()->d_rfConfig.d_chirpConfig;

    QVector<QPointF>  samples       = cc.getChirpMicroseconds();
    QVector<quint32>  packedMarkers = cc.getPackedMarkerData();

    // Upload waveform via vendor-specific commands; remap markers to
    // the device's bit positions; verify with *OPC?, etc.
    if (!writeWaveform(samples, packedMarkers))
    {
        exp.d_errorString = u"AWG waveform upload failed."_s;
        emit hardwareFailure();
        return false;
    }

    p_comm->writeCmd(u"Source1:RMode Triggered\n"_s);
    p_comm->writeCmd(u"Source1:TINPut ATRigger\n"_s);
    p_comm->writeCmd(u"TRIGger:MODE SYNChronous\n"_s);
    return true;
}

Two things to call out:

  • ChirpConfig::getPackedMarkerData() returns the marker data packed one channel per bit, indexed by logical marker channel. Each AWG vendor uses a different physical bit layout for its marker outputs; the driver remaps logical bits to physical bits before uploading. The Tektronix AWG70002A in src/hardware/optional/chirpsource/awg70002a.cpp puts logical channel 0 on bit 6 and channel 1 on bit 7 of an 8-bit marker byte, for instance; other vendors pack two channels into a 32-bit word upper bits, and so on.

  • AWG registers its scalar settings (sampleRate, maxSamples, minFreq, maxFreq, markerCount, rampOnly, triggered) via REGISTER_HARDWARE_BASE so they appear automatically on every driver. Re-register a key with REGISTER_HARDWARE_SETTINGS only when the driver’s value is fixed by the model — e.g., markerCount = 2 for the AWG70002A — or when the bounds need tightening.

Pattern C also covers Clock drivers, which override the setHwFrequency / readHwFrequency per-output virtuals plus an optional prepareClock for one-shot reference and lock setup. See src/hardware/core/clock/valon5009.cpp for the canonical Pattern C clock driver.

initialize() and testConnection()

Every driver implements two more pure virtuals from HardwareObject. The split between them is not arbitrary and is the source of more contributor confusion than any other point on this page:

  • HardwareObject::initialize() runs once, on the device’s own thread, immediately after construction and the move-to-thread step. It is the place to construct child QObjects, allocate device-side buffers, register QTimers — anything that must happen exactly once per instance lifetime. Do not attempt vendor I/O here. The CommunicationProtocol has been built and initialized at this point but no successful connection has been established yet; vendor I/O will fail in any reasonable no-hardware test environment.

  • HardwareObject::testConnection() runs on every connection test — the deferred sweep at the end of the hardware-manager sync, the user clicking Test Connection in HWDialog, the retry triggered by a hot-reload of a Python script. It is the place for the cheap interaction with the device: typically an *IDN? query plus an assertion that the responding device is the model the driver expects. On failure, store a descriptive message in d_errorString and return false; the wrapper HardwareObject::bcTestConnection() will report disconnected. On success, return true.

A few interface classes (Clock, FlowController, IOBoard, PressureController) final-override HardwareObject::initialize() and HardwareObject::testConnection() themselves to do shared setup, and call into a smaller per-driver hook (initializeClock / testClockConnection, fcInitialize / fcTestConnection, pcInitialize / pcTestConnection). Implement those instead; the rule is “look at the interface header and override what is pure virtual.”

The full lifecycle from construction through the first HardwareObject::connected() emission — the move-to-thread step, buildCommunication, the hardwareFailure lambda the manager wires up — is documented on Hardware Runtime (Per-object lifecycle: bcInitInstrument and bcTestConnection).

Auxiliary and validation data

A driver may optionally override two more virtuals to participate in the auxiliary-data pipeline:

  • HardwareObject::readAuxData() returns an AuxDataStorage::AuxDataMap of per-experiment readings — flow values, pressures, temperatures, anything worth plotting on the Aux and Rolling tabs and persisting in AuxDataStorage. The interface classes for the Pattern B types (FlowController, PressureController, TemperatureController) implement this for you out of the config-object state, so a typical driver of those types does not need its own override; for AWG, FtmwDigitizer, IOBoard, or a custom type, override it when there are device-specific readings worth recording. The default returns an empty map.

  • HardwareObject::readValidationData() returns the subset of readings the experiment validator should range-check during acquisition. The keys returned must be a subset of the values returned by HardwareObject::validationKeys() — see HardwareObject.

Both run from the wrapper HardwareObject::bcReadAuxData(), which also emits the corresponding signals, and the HardwareManager prefixes the per-device map keys with the source object’s hwKey before fanning the data out to consumers. The full fan-out plumbing is documented on Hardware Runtime (Auxiliary, validation, and rolling data); the persistence side is on AuxDataStorage.

Virtual siblings

Every hardware type in Blackchirp ships with a Virtual<Type> driver that synthesizes plausible readings without a real instrument — VirtualAwg, VirtualFlowController, VirtualIOBoard, and so on. The virtual driver backs the system profiles that guarantee a required type always has something for HardwareManager to talk to, and it is the canonical fixture for the hardware unit tests under tests/.

Adding a new driver of an existing type does not require a parallel Virtual<Driver>: the per-type virtual already covers the fall-back and test-fixture roles for every driver of that type. If your driver’s behavior diverges from the type’s virtual sibling enough that the existing fixture no longer represents it faithfully, that usually indicates the type itself needs an expanded contract (new virtuals, new aux-data keys, …) — which is a larger blast-radius change than adding a driver. See Adding a New Hardware Type, which covers virtual sibling authoring alongside the rest of the type-level surface.

Custom protocol parameters

Drivers that talk to their hardware outside the standard Rs232Instrument / TcpInstrument / GpibInstrument abstractions register CommunicationProtocol::Custom in their REGISTER_HARDWARE_PROTOCOLS invocation. CustomInstrument keeps its underlying QIODevice nullptr and its initialize() and testConnection() are no-ops; the driver’s own testConnection() does whatever vendor-specific handshake is required.

The complementary problem is collecting connection parameters from the user without instantiating the driver — the AddProfileDialog and CommunicationDialog need to render the right input widgets before any object exists. That is what REGISTER_CUSTOM_COMM is for:

REGISTER_CUSTOM_COMM(MyDriver,
    {"devPath"_L1, "Device Path",
     "Path to the device node (e.g. /dev/spcm0)",
     CustomCommType::String, 260, QVariant{}},
    {"serialNo"_L1, "Serial Number",
     "USB serial number",
     CustomCommType::Int, 0, INT_MAX})

Each CustomCommDef carries a settings key, a user-facing label, a description, a CustomCommType (String, Int, or FilePath), and type-dependent bound fields. The descriptors are read out of HardwareRegistry by CustomProtocolWidget at profile-creation time. The driver reads the resulting user-supplied values back from the BC::Key::Comm::custom settings group inside testConnection():

bool MyDriver::testConnection()
{
    auto path = getGroupValue<QString>(BC::Key::Comm::custom,
                                       "devPath"_L1,
                                       QString("/dev/spcm0"));
    d_serialNo = getGroupValue<int>(BC::Key::Comm::custom,
                                    "serialNo"_L1,
                                    0);
    // ...vendor-specific open() / *IDN? / ...
}

The full descriptor reference is on CustomInstrument; the runtime side of the protocol selector is on Hardware Runtime. Python-backed drivers also use Custom as the explicit “communication is handled by the .py script” indicator — see Python Hardware.

Vendor library dependency

If the driver depends on a closed-source SDK loaded by a VendorLibrary subclass, declare the dependency at static registration time:

REGISTER_HARDWARE_META(MyDriver, "...")
REGISTER_HARDWARE_PROTOCOLS(MyDriver, CommunicationProtocol::Custom)
REGISTER_LIBRARY(MyDriver, MyVendorLibrary)

The registry uses the REGISTER_LIBRARY linkage to know which drivers must be torn down before the library is reloaded — that is how the Library Status tab in the Hardware Configuration dialog can change a vendor library’s path without leaving live consumers holding a stale handle. Authoring a new VendorLibrary subclass is the topic of Vendor Libraries; a driver that only consumes an existing one needs nothing more than REGISTER_LIBRARY and the corresponding header include.

Smoke testing

Most of a new driver cannot be meaningfully exercised without the physical hardware it implements: the Virtual communication protocol returns no real data, so a profile created against Virtual only confirms that the driver’s static registration is intact and that the application starts. Genuine verification of testConnection, prepareForExperiment, the hw* overrides, and the aux-data path requires connecting to the actual device. Plan for development time on the instrument itself, and instrument the driver accordingly:

  • Use HardwareObject::hwDebug() liberally while the driver is being brought up. Log every command sent and every response received — the raw bytes, not just the parsed result — including hex dumps for any non-ASCII payload.

  • Enable debug logging at runtime so the hwDebug output reaches the Log tab and the on-disk log file. The toggle is an application-level configuration item (see Application Log); this is the single most useful tool for diagnosing protocol-level mismatches against a vendor manual.

  • Be deliberate about which debug calls survive once the driver is stable. hwDebug is not compiled out of release builds: if debug logging is disabled the call returns without writing anything, but the arguments are still evaluated. A hwDebug whose argument builds a multi-kilobyte hex dump on every read is still doing that work in production, even if no one ever sees the output. Keep the calls that are cheap and diagnostically valuable (a one-line *IDN? echo, a pre-acquisition handshake summary); prune the ones that allocate aggressively or run inside per-shot inner loops. Prefer to keep calls that provide diagnostic information about why an error occurred rather than simply logging every command and response.

  • Consider writing a Python driver first when the protocol is novel or the documentation is incomplete. The Python trampoline path lets you iterate on command syntax, parsing, and the per-state control flow without a rebuild on every change, then convert to a C++ driver once the protocol behavior is confirmed. The Python hardware architecture is on Python Hardware and the user-facing workflow on Python Hardware.

What you can verify without the hardware is that the driver builds, registers correctly, and does not break the rest of the application:

  1. Build with tests. The default build option BC_BUILD_TESTS=ON compiles the test executables; rebuild and run the relevant ones:

    cmake . -B build/tests
cmake --build build/tests --target tests -j$(nproc)
ctest --test-dir build/tests

    The hardware-side tests that are most likely to surface issues with a new driver:

    • tst_hardwareregistrytest — exercises registration macros, factory invocation, supported-protocol lookup, and inheritance chain construction. A typo in REGISTER_HARDWARE_META or a missing Q_OBJECT typically shows up here.

    • tst_runtimehardwareconfigtest — exercises the active-selection map, validation, and threading override.

    • tst_hardwareprofilemanagertest — exercises profile create / activate / deactivate / delete and the system-profile guarantee.

    • tst_hardwarekeys — catches collisions in the static key declarations under BC::Key::. If you added new keys to hardwarekeys.h or to a per-driver namespace, this is where a duplicate or shadowed key surfaces.

  2. Launch the application and confirm the driver is registered. A debug build under build/Desktop-Debug/ is fastest. The new driver should appear in the Hardware Configuration dialog’s right-hand Configuration panel under its hardware type, with the description string from REGISTER_HARDWARE_META and the protocol(s) from REGISTER_HARDWARE_PROTOCOLS rendered in the Add Profile dialog. Settings you registered with REGISTER_HARDWARE_SETTINGS should be present and editable in HwSettingsWidget.

Beyond that, take the driver to the bench. Create a profile against the real communication protocol, point it at the device, watch the debug log while HardwareObject::testConnection() runs, and iterate from there. Drivers that emit HardwareObject::hardwareFailure() will mark themselves disconnected, and — if d_critical is true (the default) — block the Start Experiment state machine until the test passes; the Hardware Menu surface (Hardware Menu) shows that state at a glance. Once the connection is solid, run a short experiment that exercises prepareForExperiment, beginAcquisition / endAcquisition, and any readAuxData / readValidationData overrides — for Pattern A and Pattern C drivers the experiment is the only place those code paths run.