The latest development version of this page may be more current than this released 0.0.20230323 version.

BeagleConnect Freedom & Zephyr

Develop for BeagleConnect Freedom with Zephyr

Developing directly in Zephyr will not be ultimately required for end-users who won’t touch the firmware running on BeagleConnect™ Freedom and will instead use the BeagleConnect™ Greybus functionality, but is important for early adopters as well as people looking to extend the functionality of the open source design. If you are one of those people, this is a good place to get started.

Equipment to begin development

There are many options, but let’s get started with one recommended set for the beta users.

Required

  • beta-kit

    • Seeed Studio BeagleBone® Green Gateway

    • 3x BeagleConnect™ Freedom board, antenna, U.FL to SMA cable, SMA antenna and USB Type-A to Type-C cable

    • 1x MikroE ID Click

  • microSD card (6GB or larger)

  • microSD card programmer

Optional

  • x86_64 computer running Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS

Install the latest software image for BeagleBone Green Gateway

Download and install the Debian Linux operating system image for the Seeed BeagleBone® Green Gateway host.

  1. Download the special mikroBUS/Greybus BeagleBoard.org Debian image from here. Pick the most recent directory and select the file beginning with bone- and ending with .img.xz. Today that file is bone-debian-11.2-iot-mikrobus-armhf-2022-03-04-4gb.img.xz.

  2. Load this image to a microSD card using a tool like Etcher.

  3. Insert the microSD card into the Green Gateway.

  4. Power BeagleBone Green Gateway via the 12V barrel jack.

#TODO: describe how to know it is working

Other systems

Important

If you are using the image above, none of the instructions in this section are required.

  1. Update the system.
    sudo apt update
  2. Install all BeagleConnect™ management software.
    sudo apt install -y \
beagleconnect beagleconnect-msp430 \
git vim \
build-essential \
cmake ninja-build gperf \
ccache dfu-util device-tree-compiler \
make gcc libsdl2-dev \
libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libssl-dev libjpeg62-turbo-dev \
gcc-arm-none-eabi libnewlib-arm-none-eabi \
libtool-bin pkg-config autoconf automake libusb-1.0-0-dev \
python3-dev python3-pip python3-setuptools python3-tk python3-wheel

    echo "export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin" >> $HOME/.bashrc

    source $HOME/.bashrc
  3. Reboot
    sudo reboot
  4. Install BeagleConnect™ flashing software
    pip3 install -U west
  5. Reboot
    sudo reboot

Log into BeagleBone Green Gateway

These instructions assume an x86_64 computer runing Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, but any computer can be used to connect to your BeagleBone Green Gateway.

  1. Log onto the Seeed BeagleBone® Green Gateway using ssh.

    • We need IP address, Username, and Password to connect to the device.

    • The default IP for the BeagleBone hardware is 192.168.7.2

    • The default Username is debian & Password is temppwd

    • To connect you can simply type $ ssh debian@192.168.7.2 and when asked for password just type temppwd

    • Congratulations, You are now connected to the device!

  2. Connect to the WiFi

    • Execute sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf and provide the password temppwd to edit the configuration file for the WiFi connection.

    • Now edit the file (shown below) under the network={...} section you can set you ssid (WiFi name) and psk (Wifi Password).

      ctrl_interface=DIR=/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
#country=IN
network={
        ssid="WiFi Name"
        psk="WiFi Password"
}

    • Now save the file with CTRL+O and exit with CTRL+X.

    • Check if the connection is established by executing $ ping 8.8.8.8 you should see something like shown below.

      debian@BeagleBone:~$ ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=118 time=10.5 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=118 time=5.72 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=118 time=6.13 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=4 ttl=118 time=6.11 ms
...

    • If everything goes well, you are ready to update your system and install new applications for beagleconnect.

Install Zephyr development tools on BeagleBone Green Gateway

  1. Download and setup Zephyr for BeagleConnect™
    cd
west init -m https://github.com/jadonk/zephyr --mr bcf-sdk-3.1.0-rebase bcf-zephyr
cd $HOME/bcf-zephyr
west update
west zephyr-export
pip3 install -r zephyr/scripts/requirements-base.txt
echo "export CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-" >> $HOME/.bashrc
echo "export ZEPHYR_BASE=$HOME/bcf-zephyr/zephyr" >> $HOME/.bashrc
echo "export PATH=$HOME/bcf-zephyr/zephyr/scripts:$PATH" >> $HOME/.bashrc
echo "export BOARD=beagleconnect_freedom" >> $HOME/.bashrc
source $HOME/.bashrc

Build applications for BeagleConnect Freedom on BeagleBone Green Gateway

Now you can build various Zephyr applications

  1. Change directory to BeagleConnect Freedom zephyr repository.

    cd $HOME/bcf-zephyr

  2. Build blinky example

    west build -d build/blinky zephyr/samples/basic/blinky

  3. TODO

    west build -d build/sensortest zephyr/samples/boards/beagle_bcf/sensortest -- -DOVERLAY_CONFIG=overlay-subghz.conf

  4. TODO

    west build -d build/wpanusb modules/lib/wpanusb_bc -- -DOVERLAY_CONFIG=overlay-subghz.conf

  5. TODO

    west build -d build/bcfserial modules/lib/wpanusb_bc -- -DOVERLAY_CONFIG=overlay-bcfserial.conf -DDTC_OVERLAY_FILE=bcfserial.overlay

  6. TODO

    west build -d build/greybus modules/lib/greybus/samples/subsys/greybus/net -- -DOVERLAY_CONFIG=overlay-802154-subg.conf

Flash applications to BeagleConnect Freedom from BeagleBone Green Gateway

And then you can flash the BeagleConnect Freedom boards over USB

  1. Make sure you are in Zephyr directory
    cd $HOME/bcf-zephyr
  2. Flash Blinky
    cc2538-bsl.py build/blinky

Debug applications over the serial terminal

#TODO#