Revision as of 16:04, 23 June 2011

RoboVero is a robotics expansion board for the Overo COM series.

Quickstart

Connect

All RoboVero boards ship with a peripheral driver library and command line interface preflashed. When you apply power, a red LED should illuminate immediately. This indicates that code is executing on the board. The LED stays on until a USB connection is established when it begins blinking at a heartbeat rhythm. The device should appear as /dev/ttyACM0. You can connect with kermit.

$ ls /dev | grep ttyACM
ttyACM0
$ kermit -l /dev/ttyACM0

C-Kermit 8.0.211, 10 Apr 2004, for Linux
 Copyright (C) 1985, 2004,
  Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York.
Type ? or HELP for help.
C-Kermit> set carrier-watch off
C-Kermit> connect

<snip welcome message>
press enter to begin...

This gives you a simple command line interface to most of the NXP driver functions. You can find documentation for the functions included in ${HOME}/cortex-m3/LPC1700CMSIS.

Functions

list

You can list all of the available functions with list.

[:)] list
<snip all functions>

Or for a more manageable subset, provide a start and the number of functions to display. Note that all arguments and return values are hexadecimal.

[:)] list 1 7
001 return
002 search
003 list
004 promptOn
005 promptOff
006 heartbeatOn
007 heartbeatOff

The number beside the function name is its function list index. You can speed up function calls by using the index rather than the function name.

[:)] 3 1 7
001 return
002 search
003 list
004 promptOn
005 promptOff
006 heartbeatOn
007 heartbeatOff

return

Your prompt indicates whether the previous operation succeeded.

[:)] somenonfunction
[:(]

return is another mechanism for obtaining the return status.

[:)] return
0
[:)] somenonfunction
[:(] return
1
[:)]

There are a couple of subtle points to understand here. First,

Hardware

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All you need to get started with RoboVero is a power source - a 5-15V battery or 5V power supply will do - and USB-A to Mini-B cable. Note that the RoboVero power supply is different from that of other expansion boards.

RoboVero is based on the NXP LPC1769 ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller.

HubCommander

When an external machine is connected to the RoboVero USB Mini-B, it automatically takes control of the RoboVero USB subsystem.

Software

Prerequisites

You'll need to install git to retrieve some of the software for the toolchain.

$ sudo apt-get install gawk bison flex automake libtool libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev libusb-dev eclipse eclipse-cdt unzip

Create a new folder in your home directory.

$ mkdir ${HOME}/cortex-m3

Toolchain

crosstool-NG

A cross compiler builds executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler runs. In our case, the toolchain (compiler, linker, debugger, etc.) will typically run on i386 or i686 and generate binaries for ARMv7-M. crosstool-NG is an application for building cross toolchains.

ARM Angstrom

Building the RoboVero toolchain for Overo takes hours and requires installing a number of non-standard packages. The easiest way to get started is to download the archive containing a pre-built toolchain and extract it to your home folder.

NOTE: This hasn't been tested with a clean build and may require additional packages.

# cd
# wget http://cumulus.gumstix.org/sources/robovero/x-tools.tar.gz
# tar -xzf x-tools.tar.gz

Your toolchain should appear in ${HOME}/x-tools. Process the the Exporting PATH section.

Other

Go to http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/dokuwiki/projects/crosstool to determine the current version of crosstool-NG

$ cd ${HOME}/cortex-m3
$ wget http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/download/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng-X.X.X.tar.bz2

Extract the archive

$ tar xjf crosstool-ng-X.X.X.tar.bz2
$ cd ${HOME}/cortex-m3/crosstool-ng-X.X.X

Install crosstool-ng

$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install

Make a new directory for the baremetal configuration file.

$ mkdir ${HOME}/cortex-m3/arm-eabi
$ cd ${HOME}/cortex-m3/arm-eabi
$ cp ${HOME}/cortex-m3/crosstool-ng-1.9.1/samples/arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi/crosstool.config .config

Add gdb to the configuration and build the toolchain. The build will take around 30 minutes depending on your machine.

$ ct-ng menuconfig
Debug facilities  ---
 [*] gdb  ---
  [*]   Cross-gdb

$ ct-ng build

Exporting PATH

If the build succeeds your new toolchain will appear in ~/x-tools. Add to the PATH environment variable (where the system looks for binaries) by appending an export command to .bashrc. Open a new terminal and echo path to verify that the change has taken effect.

$ nano ${HOME}/.bashrc
export PATH="${HOME}/x-tools/arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi/bin:$PATH"

[new terminal]
$ echo $PATH

LPC1700CMSIS

LPC1700CMSIS is a collection of source code and libraries to simplify writing firmware for the M3.

$ cd ${HOME}/cortex-m3
$ mkdir LPC1700CMSIS
$ cd LPC1700CMSIS
$ wget

http://ics.nxp.com/support/documents/microcontrollers/zip/lpc17xx.cmsis.driver.library.zip

$ unzip lpc17xx.cmsis.driver.library.zip

Test

Time to find out whether we can compile a project. Let's try to build the LPC1700CMSIS Driver Library.

$ cd ${HOME}/cortex-m3/LPC1700CMSIS/makesection
$ nano makeconfig

PROJ_ROOT         =${HOME}/cortex-m3/LPC1700CMSIS
CMCORE_TYPE       =CM3
DEVICE            =LPC17xx
MANUFACTURE       =NXP
TOOL              =gnu
DEBUG_MODE        =1
GNU_INSTALL_ROOT  =${HOME}/x-tools/arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi
GNU_VERSION       =4.4.1

$ cd makerule/common
$ nano make.rules.environment

[remove path and .exe extension from tools - you might also need to change some backslashes]

$ cd ../LPC17xx
$ nano makefile.LPC17xx.gnu

TOOLCHAIN =arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi

$ ${HOME}/cortex-m3/LPC1700CMSIS
$ make VERBOSE=yes

Take a look at the compiler messages to verify that arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi-gcc and arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi-ld are being invoked. If so, and you get no build errors, the toolchain is working. You can also try building one of the images in the Examples folder.

Debug Tools

FT2232

FT2232 is a serial protocol converter that provides JTAG connectivity to the Robovero and console port access to the Overo COM. We need to install the driver for JTAG to work.

Ubuntu

$ sudo apt-get install libftdi-dev

ARM Angstrom

# opkg install libftdi

Other

Go to http://www.intra2net.com/en/developer/libftdi/download.php to find the current libftdi release

$ cd ${HOME}/cortex-m3
$ wget http://www.intra2net.com/en/developer/libftdi/download/libftdi-X.X.tar.gz
$ tar xf libftdi-X.X.tar.gz
$ cd libftdi-X.XX/
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ldconfig

OpenOCD

Open On-Circuit Debugger (OpenOCD) provides debugging, in-system programming and boundary-scan testing for the Robovero. It connects the debug host (your development machine) to the target (cortex) through an adapter (FT2232). OpenOCD allows you to debug code running on the target with GDB.

ARM Angstrom

# wget http://cumulus.gumstix.org/sources/robovero/openocd_0.4-r0.6_armv7a.ipk
# opkg install openocd_0.4-r0.6_armv7a.ipk
# wget http://cumulus.gumstix.org/sources/lpc1769.cfg
# cp lpc1769.cfg /usr/share/openocd/scripts/target

Other

$ cd ${HOME}/cortex-m3
$ wget http://download.berlios.de/openocd/openocd-X.X.X.tar.bz2
$ tar xjf openocd-X.X.X.tar.bz2
$ cd openocd-X.X.X/
$ ./configure --enable-ft2232_libftdi
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ wget http://cumulus.gumstix.org/sources/lpc1769.cfg
$ sudo cp lpc1769.cfg /usr/local/share/openocd/scripts/target

Test

Plug in your device. And run OpenOCD to connect.

$ sudo openocd -f interface/openocd-usb.cfg -f target/lpc1769.cfg
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.4.0 (2011-01-06-19:17)
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
    http://openocd.berlios.de/doc/doxygen/bugs.html
500 kHz
Info : clock speed 500 kHz
Info : JTAG tap: lpc1768.cpu tap/device found: 0x4ba00477 (mfg: 0x23b, part: 0xba00, ver: 0x4)
Info : lpc1768.cpu: hardware has 6 breakpoints, 4 watchpoints

Firmware

The source for the firmware that ships with RoboVero is available via github. Follow these steps if you would like to contribute to the project or just use it as a reference.

$ cd
$ mkdir robovero
$ cd robovero
$ git clone git://github.com/robovero/firmware.git

The source will now appear in ${HOME}/robovero/firmware. Next, build and flash the firmware to your device. If your toolchain isn't at ${HOME}/x-tools you will have to modify the Makefile and PATH environment variable.

$ cd firmware
$ make

Start OpenOCD according to the above instructions if you haven't already. Open another terminal. We will flash using GDB.

$ wget http://cumulus.gumstix.org/sources/robovero/gdbconfig
$ x-tools/arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi/bin/arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi-gdb -x gdbconfig robovero/firmware/firmware

(gdb) load
(gdb) continue

If your LED starts to flash then your debug tools are working. You can press the RoboVero reset and the firmware will run without GDB.

Difference between revisions of "RoboVero"

Revision as of 16:04, 23 June 2011

Contents

Quickstart

Connect

Functions

list

return

Hardware

HubCommander

Software

Prerequisites

Toolchain

crosstool-NG

ARM Angstrom

Other

Exporting PATH

LPC1700CMSIS

Test

Debug Tools

FT2232

Ubuntu

ARM Angstrom

Other

OpenOCD

ARM Angstrom

Other

Test

Firmware

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