core2-mbed-template

Blinking leds project template for Husarion CORE2, a board equipped with STM32 Cortex-M4 MCU. Project is prepared for development in Visual Studio Code with Mbed CLI tools.

Based on version mbed-os-5.14.1

Prerequisites

You need to install following tools:

• Visual Studio Code IDE
• GNU Arm Embedded version 6 toolchain
• STM32 ST-LINK Utility (Windows)
• stlink flasher (Mac/Linux)
• Mbed CLI

Required Visual Studio Code extensions:

• Microsoft C/C++ extension (ms-vscode.cpptools)
• Cortex-Debug (marus25.cortex-debug)

Mbed CLI installation

To install the tool follow the official documentation:

• Linux
• Mac/Windows

After installation set the path to the binary directory of your GCC Arm Embedded Compiler installation:

Example for Windows:

$ mbed config -G GCC_ARM_PATH "C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU Tools ARM Embedded\6 2017-q2-update\bin" 

Example for Linux:

$ mbed config -G GCC_ARM_PATH ~\opt\gcc-arm-none-eabi-6-2017-q2-update\bin

Make sure you have the GNU Arm Embedded version 6 toolchain installed on your system. Check the Prerequisites section.

To check current configuration run:

$ mbed config --list

Preparing a workspace

Create a new folder core2-mbed-workspace. It will serve as workspace for your mbed projects. Run:

$ mkdir core2-mbed-workspace && cd core2-mbed-workspace

Next step is to import mbed-os library. It will be used by all your projects. In your workspace folder run:

$ mbed import mbed-os

Set Mbed OS version to supported by this template:

$ cd mbed-os
$ mbed update mbed-os-5.14.1

During Mbed OS installation you can be asked to install additional python libraries. Switch to mbed-os dir and run:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt --user

Set path to mbed-os directory in Mbed CLI. These way all your projects can use one instance of the library (default configuration is to have separate instance of library for each project). Run:

$ mbed config -G MBED_OS_DIR <path to mbed-os>

Example:

$ mbed config -G MBED_OS_DIR "E:\mbed_projects\core2-mbed-workspace\mbed-os"

Adding .mbedignore

In mbed-os directory create .mbedignore (filename starts with dot) file with following content:

features/cellular/*
features/cryptocell/*
features/deprecated_warnings/*
features/lorawan/*
features/lwipstack/*
features/nanostack/*
features/netsocket/*
features/nfc/*
features/unsupported/*
components/wifi/*
components/802.15.4_RF/*
targets/TARGET_STM/TARGET_STM32F4/TARGET_STM32F407xG/device/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM/STM32F407XG.ld
targets/TARGET_STM/TARGET_STM32F4/TARGET_STM32F407xG/device/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM/startup_stm32f407xx.S
usb/*

How to use firmware

Open Visual Studio Code, press CTRL + SHIFT + P and type Git: Clone in Command Pallet. Copy and paste the URL to this repo that you will find at GitHub page.

You will be prompted to select your repo location. Choose core2-mbed-workspace directory.

Updating project files

Open core2-mbed-template in VSC. In .vscode directory find settings.json file and change the value of C_cpp.default.compilerPath with path to arm-none-eabi-g++ location on your system:

Example (Windows):

{
    "C_Cpp.default.compilerPath": "C:/Program Files (x86)/GNU Tools ARM Embedded/6 2017-q2-update/bin/arm-none-eabi-g++"
}

Compilation tasks

To build and flash your firmware press CTRL + SHIFT + P and type Tasks: Run Task in Command Pallete. Here is the list of available tasks:

• BUILD (RELEASE)
• BUILD (DEBUG)
• FLASH FIRMWARE WHEN BOOTLOADER (RELEASE)*
• FLASH FIRMWARE WHEN BOOTLOADER (DEBUG) *
• FLASH FIRMWARE NO BOOTLOADER (RELEASE) *
• FLASH FIRMWARE NO BOOTLOADER (DEBUG) *
• CREATE STATIC MBED-OS LIB (RELEASE)
• CREATE STATIC MBED-OS LIB (DEBUG)
• BUILD FROM STATIC LIB (RELEASE)
• BUILD FROM STATIC LIB (DEBUG)
• CLEAN DEBUG
• CLEAN RELEASE

* require ST-LINK programmer

Updating project files

Open settings.json file from .vscode and change value of C_cpp.default.compilerPath with path to arm-none-eabi-g++ location on your system:

{
    "C_Cpp.default.compilerPath": "C:/Program Files (x86)/GNU Tools ARM Embedded/6 2017-q2-update/bin/arm-none-eabi-g++"
}

You can add new tasks and customize existing ones by editing task.json file.

Building and uploading firmware (BOOTLOADER)

The software bootloader allows the use of Husarion Cloud. You can find it in TARGET_CORE2/bootloader_1_0_0_cortex.hex. The instruction how to flash it can be found here.

To build firmware use BUILD (RELEASE) or BUILD (DEBUG) tasks.

To flash firmware connect ST-LINK to debug connector of CORE2 and use FLASH FIRMWARE WHEN BOOTLOADER (RELEASE) or FLASH FIRMWARE WHEN BOOTLOADER (DEBUG) task.

Building and uploading firmware (NO BOOTLOADER)

Before proceeding with the following steps make sure you conducted mass erase of the memory and made all flash memory sectors are write unprotected.

If you do not want use the bootloader just remove this lines from mbed_app.json:

    "target.mbed_app_start":"0x08010000",
    "target.mbed_rom_start":"0x08000000",
    "target.mbed_rom_size":"0x100000"

To build firmware use BUILD (RELEASE) or BUILD (DEBUG) tasks.

To flash firmware connect ST-LINK to debug connector of CORE2 and use FLASH FIRMWARE NO BOOTLOADER (RELEASE) or FLASH FIRMWARE NO BOOTLOADER (DEBUG) task.

Flashing firmware using core2-flasher

$ arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O ihex firmware.elf firmware.hex 
$ ./core2-flasher firmware.hex

You will find firmware.elf in ./BUILD/RELEASE or ./BUILD/DEBUG.

Here you can learn where to find core2-flasher for your system: https://husarion.com/manuals/core2/#updating-core2-bootloader

Flashing firmware using stm32loader

https://github.com/byq77/stm32loader

This tool allows you to upload firmware using RPi connector.

If you have the bootloader the first two sectors are write protected. Before uploading new firmware you must unlock them (this will erase the bootloader):

$ sudo stm32loader -c <your_sbc> -u -W

To upload new firmware run:

$ sudo stm32loader -c <your_sbc> -e -v -w firmware.bin

Debug

To debug:

• make sure you have stlink from texane installed on your system: https://github.com/texane/stlink/blob/master/README.md
• install extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=marus25.cortex-debug
• compile and flash DEBUG firmware
• CTRL + SHIFT + D and click on start debug button

mbed development

Documentation:

• MBED OS Documentation
• MBED OS API Doxygen