If VeriStand is undeployed or looses the connection, the last value is automatically kept. This can lead to problems, e.g. if the electric heater is switched on uncontrolled.
In order to prevent this, a Watchdog is introduced, which sets the values to a save value when a problem occurs or when the project gets undeployed.
In the VeriStand Interface, the Watchdog is controlled as follows:
The current count (which changes every 0.1 seconds) is sent to the watchdog channel of the different ICs. If the project gets undeployed because the user hits 'undeploy', an error occurs in the VeriStand Interface or the datalogging/experiment time is over, the count is paused for 2 seconds.
In the safety model in VeriStand, the watchdog checks every second, if the count goes up. If this is not the case, the safety model will automatically write save values (normally '0' or 'off').