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Tools

SensorIO board is equipped with STM32F413ZH MCU so it can work with many different RTOSs or even bare metal. This guide (and other examples in this documentation) will concentrate on Mbed OS and command line tooling, which can be easily integrated into any IDE.

Mbed CLI

Software requirements

  1. Python 2.7.11 or 3.6.0. Other python versions might work, but mbed-cli is tested with those two.
  2. Compiler: Mbed OS supports several toolchains, both free and paid (ARM Compiler, IAR, GNU Arm, and more), but all examples in this documentation are based and tested with GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain.

Installation

  1. Create a virtualenv for mbed-cli:

    • With Python 2.7.11: 
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      virtualenv -p python2.7 mbed
    • with Python 3.6.0: 
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      virtualenv -p python3.6 mbed

  2. Activate virtual environment

    • on macOS/Linux: 
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      source mbed/bin/activate
    • on Windows: 
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      mbed\Scripts\activate

  3. Install mbed-cli: 

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    pip install mbed-cli

pip installs a release version of mbed-cli, you can choose however to install a development version - instructions are here.

GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain

GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain can be downloaded directly from ARM. Mbed OS requires 6-2017-q2-update, however SensorIO firmware is also tested with 7-2018-q2-update version.

For installation instructions please refer to readme file in compiler package for your operating system.

OpenOCD

OpenOCD is an open source debugging tool that supports numerous debugger interfaces and microcontrollers. Base installation instructions are available on Getting OpenOCD web page.

SensorIO comes with an onboard ST-Link V2 debugger, which is working with OpenOCD, however this functionality has to be enabled during OpenOCD build. If a binary provided for you operating system is not able to work with SensorIO, it is possible to compile OpenOCD from source - here are official instructions.

SensorIO is tested with custom binary built from source and following configuration: 

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./configure --enable-ftdi --enable-ti-icdi --enable-stlink --enable-cmsis-dap --enable-jlink --enable-openjtag --disable-verbose-usb-comms --disable-verbose-usb-io

SensorIO provides a 10 pin JTAG/SWD header that can be used to connect external debuggers. Segger JLink probes work well with SensorIO and Segger software can be downloaded from their website.