Supported Hardware

This firmware can be built for a variety of supported hardware platforms.

Important

In Zephyr, each of these different hardware variants is given a unique "board" identifier, which is used by the build system to generate firmware for that variant.

When building firmware using the instructions below, make sure to use the correct Zephyr board identifier that corresponds to your follow-along hardware platform.

Follow-Along Hardware

Hardware	Zephyr Board	Follow-Along Guide
	nrf9160dk_nrf9160_ns	nRF9160 DK Follow-Along Guide

Firmware Overview

The OBD-II / CAN Asset Tracker Reference Design connects to the OBD-II diagnostic port in a vehicle and continuously records vehicle sensor values using the ISO 15765 (CAN bus) protocol.

Specifically, the following OBD-II vehicle sensor "PIDs" are supported:

• 0x0D: Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS)

The vehicle sensor values are combined with GPS location/time data and uploaded to the Golioth Cloud. The timestamp from the GPS reading is used as the timestamp for the data record in the Golioth LightDB Stream database.

GPS readings can be received as frequently as once-per-second. When the device is out of cellular range, the reference design firmware caches data locally and uploads it later when connection to the cellular network is restored.

Supported Golioth Zephyr SDK Features

This firmware implements the following features from the Golioth Zephyr SDK:

• Device Settings Service
• LightDB State Client
• LightDB Stream Client
• Logging Client
• Over-the-Air (OTA) Firmware Upgrade
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

Device Settings Service

The following settings can be set in the Device Settings menu of the Golioth Console.

LOOP_DELAY_S

Adjusts the delay between sensor readings. Set to an integer value (seconds).

Default value is 5 seconds.

GPS_DELAY_S

Adjusts the delay between recording GPS readings. Set to an integer value (seconds).

Default value is 3 seconds.

FAKE_GPS_ENABLED

Controls whether fake GPS position data is reported when a real GPS location signal is unavailable. Set to a boolean value.

Default value is false.

FAKE_GPS_LATITUDE

Sets the fake latitude value to be used when fake GPS is enabled. Set to a floating point value (-90.0 to 90.0).

Default value is 37.789980.

FAKE_GPS_LONGITUDE

Sets the fake longitude value to be used when fake GPS is enabled. Set to a floating point value (-180.0 to 180.0).

Default value is -122.400860.

VEHICLE_SPEED_DELAY_S

Adjusts the delay between vehicle speed readings. Set to an integer value (seconds).

Default value is 1 second.

LightDB Stream Service

Vehicle data is periodically sent to the following endpoints of the LightDB Stream service:

• gps/lat: Latitude (°)
• gps/lon: Longitude (°)
• gps/fake: true if GPS location data is fake, otherwise false
• vehicle/speed: Vehicle Speed (km/h)

On hardware platforms with support for battery monitoring, battery voltage and level readings are periodically sent to the following battery/* endpoints:

• battery/batt_v: Battery Voltage (V)
• battery/batt_lvl: Battery Level (%)

LightDB State Service

The concept of Digital Twin is demonstrated with the LightDB State example_int0 and example_int1 variables that are members of the desired and state endpoints.

• desired values may be changed from the cloud side. The device will recognize these, validate them for [0..65535] bounding, and then reset these endpoints to -1
• state values will be updated by the device whenever a valid value is received from the desired endpoints. The cloud may read the state endpoints to determine device status, but only the device should ever write to the state endpoints.

Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Service

The following RPCs can be initiated in the Remote Procedure Call menu of the Golioth Console.

get_network_info

Query and return network information.

reboot

Reboot the system.

set_log_level

Set the log level.

The method takes a single parameter which can be one of the following integer values:

• 0: LOG_LEVEL_NONE
• 1: LOG_LEVEL_ERR
• 2: LOG_LEVEL_WRN
• 3: LOG_LEVEL_INF
• 4: LOG_LEVEL_DBG

Building the firmware

The firmware build instructions below assume you have already set up a Zephyr development environment and have some basic familiarity with building firmware using the Zephyr Real Time Operating System (RTOS).

If you're brand new to building firmware with Zephyr, you will need to follow the Zephyr Getting Started Guide to install the Zephyr SDK and related dependencies.

We also provide free online Developer Training for Zephyr at:

https://training.golioth.io/docs/zephyr-training

Important

Do not clone this repo using git. Zephyr's west meta-tool should be used to set up your local workspace.

Create a Python virtual environment (recommended)

cd ~
mkdir golioth-reference-design-can-asset-tracker
python -m venv golioth-reference-design-can-asset-tracker/.venv
source golioth-reference-design-can-asset-tracker/.venv/bin/activate

Install west meta-tool

pip install wheel west

Use west to initialize the workspace and install dependencies

cd ~/golioth-reference-design-can-aset-tracker
west init -m git@github.com:golioth/reference-design-can-asset-tracker.git .
west update
west zephyr-export
pip install -r deps/zephyr/scripts/requirements.txt

Build the firmware

Build the Zephyr firmware from the top-level workspace of your project. After a successful build you will see a new build/ directory.

Note that this git repository was cloned into the app folder, so any changes you make to the application itself should be committed inside this repository. The build and deps directories in the root of the workspace are managed outside of this git repository by the west meta-tool.

Prior to building, update CONFIG_MCUBOOT_IMGTOOL_SIGN_VERSION in the prj.conf file to reflect the firmware version number you want to assign to this build.

Important

When running the commands below, make sure to replace the placeholder <your_zephyr_board_id> with the actual Zephyr board from the table above that matches your follow-along hardware.

$ (.venv) west build -p -b <your_zephyr_board_id> app

For example, to build firmware for the Nordic nRF9160 DK-based follow-along hardware:

$ (.venv) west build -p -b nrf9160dk_nrf9160_ns app

Flash the firmware

$ (.venv) west flash

Provision the device

In order for the device to securely authenticate with the Golioth Cloud, we need to provision the device with a pre-shared key (PSK). This key will persist across reboots and only needs to be set once after the device firmware has been programmed. In addition, flashing new firmware images with west flash should not erase these stored settings unless the entire device flash is erased.

Configure the PSK-ID and PSK using the device UART shell and reboot the device:

uart:~$ settings set golioth/psk-id <my-psk-id@my-project>
uart:~$ settings set golioth/psk <my-psk>
uart:~$ kernel reboot cold

External Libraries

The following code libraries are installed by default. If you are not using the custom hardware to which they apply, you can safely remove these repositories from west.yml and remove the includes/function calls from the C code.

• golioth-zephyr-boards includes the board definitions for the Golioth Aludel-Mini
• libostentus is a helper library for controlling the Ostentus ePaper faceplate
• zephyr-network-info is a helper library for querying, formatting, and returning network connection information via Zephyr log or Golioth RPC

Pulling in updates from the Reference Design Template

This reference design was forked from the Reference Design Template repo. We recommend the following workflow to pull in future changes:

• Setup
  • Create a template remote based on the Reference Design Template repository
• Merge in template changes
  • Fetch template changes and tags
  • Merge template release tag into your main (or other branch)
  • Resolve merge conflicts (if any) and commit to your repository

# Setup
git remote add template https://github.com/golioth/reference-design-template.git
git fetch template --tags

# Merge in template changes
git fetch template --tags
git checkout your_local_branch
git merge template_v1.0.0

# Resolve merge conflicts if necessary
git add resolved_files
git commit