Developing and Debugging the Firmware

The out of box demo source code can be used as a starting point for your own IoT cloud applications! This document will explain how to use Visual Studio Code to build and debug the application (MG100 and Pinnacle 100 only).

Note: These instructions assume you already have the Zephyr tools installed and can build the app successfully. Please see here if you have not completed those steps.

Prerequisites

  1. Install J-Link Software and Documentation Pack for J-Link drivers and software.

  2. Install Visual Studio Code

    Install the following VS Code extensions

    1. C/C++ extension
    2. Cortex-Debug extension

Building the Firmware

After cloning this repository with west the directory structure should look like:

Demo folder
Demo folder

Open the ble_gateway_firmware folder with VS Code. The source code is then viewable in the app folder.

Source code
Source code

There are VS Code tasks already setup to make building and flashing the firmware easy!

Note: To view or edit the tasks. Look at .vscode/tasks.json.

To build the firmware, run the build task by selecting Terminal -> Run Build Task…

Note: This builds the firmware without the mcuboot bootloader. This is the best method for debugging.

Run build task
Run build task

Once the firmware has built, you can flash the firmware by running the flash application task.

Select Terminal -> Run Task…, then select flash application.

Run flash task
Run flash task

Debugging the Firmware

Debugging the firmware on the device requires a J-Link debugger and the Cortex-Debug extension for VS Code.

Cortex-Debug Setup

Before debugging, some simple setup is required for Cortex-Debug. Go to File -> Preferences -> Settings.

At the top of settings type cortex-debug to display the settings for that extension. The Arm Toolchain Path and JLink GDB Server Path settings need to be set. Click one of the Edit in settings.json links to edit the settings.

Cortex debug settings
Cortex-Debug settings

Add the following lines to the settings.json file:

# Linux/macOS

"cortex-debug.armToolchainPath": "/usr/local/Caskroom/gcc-arm-embedded/9-2019-q4-major/gcc-arm-none-eabi-9-2019-q4-major/bin",

# Windows

"cortex-debug.JLinkGDBServerPath": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\SEGGER\\JLink\\JLinkGDBServerCL.exe",
"cortex-debug.armToolchainPath": "C:\\GNU_Tools_Arm_Embedded\\8_2019-q3-update\\bin",

Notes: The paths may be different based on your installations of those tools.

Firmware Setup

In order to debug the firmware properly, it is recommended to change the optimization settings of the firmware when it is compiled. This allows better breakpoint support and viewing temporary variable values. In prj.conf look for:

CONFIG_NO_OPTIMIZATIONS
CONFIG_DEBUG_OPTIMIZATIONS

You can uncomment one of the lines and re-build the firmware.

CONFIG_NO_OPTIMIZATIONS is equivalent to -O0 in gcc. See here

CONFIG_DEBUG_OPTIMIZATIONS is equivalent to -Og.

Starting the Debugger

Once the firmware is built, debugging can be started by going to Debug -> Start Debugging

Note: Debugger settings for VS Code are setup in .vscode/launch.json. That file is already setup to work with Cortex-Debug and this demo.

More info on debugging in VS Code can be found here

Location Services

See here for examples on how to use GPS and PoLTE.