Message queue telemetry transport (mqtt) data logger and processor for near …

Description (excerpt)

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS The present application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 63/529,945, filed Jul. 31, 2023, and entitled “MQ TELEMETRY TRANSPORT (MQTT) DATA LOGGER AND PROCESSOR FOR NEAR REAL TIME DATA ANALYSIS,” the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein. STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT The invention described herein was made in the performance of official duties by employees of the Department of the Navy and may be manufactured, used and licensed by or for the United States Government for any governmental purpose without payment of any royalties thereon. This invention (Navy Case 211348US01) is assigned to the United States Government and is available for licensing for commercial purposes. Licensing and technical inquiries may be directed to the Technology Transfer Office, Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane, email: Crane_T2@navy.mil. FIELD The present disclosure generally relates to message queue telemetry transport (MQTT) data logging and processing, and more particularly to apparatus and methods for effecting an MQTT data logger and processor that affords near real time data analysis, especially for machine-to-machine (M2M) network protocol. BACKGROUND MQTT is a publish-and-subscribe, machine to machine (M2M) network messaging protocol for message queue (MQ)/message queuing service and is an open OASIS standard and an ISO recommendation (ISO/IEC 20922). In some aspects, the protocol is designed for implementing connections with remote devices having resource constraints or limited network bandwidth. The protocol is run over a transport protocol that provides ordered, lossless, bi-directional connections such as with Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). In further aspects, MQTT is a bi-directional communication protocol. MQTT employs software, firmware, and/or hardware termed an “MQTT broker” that receives MQTT messages from network clients and then routes the messages to appropriate destination clients. An MQTT client is any device that runs an MQTT library and connects to the MQTT broker over a network. In operation, the broker acts as a type of distributor wherein MQTT clients do not have a direct connection address of the intended recipient, but instead use the subject line called “Topic” that is populated by a particular topic terms or descriptor. Anyone who subscribes receives a copy of all messages for that topic. Multiple clients can subscribe to a topic from a single broker (one to many capability), and a single client can register subscriptions to topics with multiple brokers (many to one). Each client can both produce and receive data by both publishing and subscribing, which is beneficial for sharing data and managing and controlling devices. A client cannot broadcast the same data to a range of topics, and must publish multiple messages to the broker, each with a single topic given. With the MQTT broker architecture, the client devices and server application become decoupled such that clients are kept unaware of each other's information. The broker also keeps track of all the session's information as a device state toggles between on and off in a function termed “persistent sessions.” In this state, a broker will store both connection info for each client, topics each client has subscribed to, and any messages for a topic with a QoS of 1 or 2. An MQTT broker is beneficial in that it may (1) eliminate vulnerable and insecure client connections; (2) enable scaling from a single device to many devices; (3) manage and tracks all client connection states, including security credentials and certificates; and/or (4) reduce network strain without compromising the security. For some systems, known MQTT brokers do not provide a mechanism to save any of the messages that are sent across the M2M network protocol into the MQTT brokers. Accordingly, there is a need for apparatus and methods that afford subscription to an MQTT broker and logging of all of the messages that are published. SUMMARY The present disclosure provides a Digital Mission Engineering (DME) MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT) Data Logger and Processor for Near Real Time Data Analysis that is configured to subscribe to a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) network protocol and store all the messages sent to an MQTT broker. Once all of the messages have been logged, the presently disclosed invention further features software or instructions (e.g., a MATLAB script) that are executed to clean and place the data into a format that is ingestible by Modeling and Simulation (M&S) Tool Suites. These aspects of the presently disclosed invention can be utilized by test and evaluation (T&E) engineers to rapidly evaluate system characteris