ATNGW100Beginners guide using Bipedal Robot as Example

As i had promised ,here comes the tutorial about ATNGW100.This is not a general purpose tutorial, but its a view of ATNGW100 from our perspective,how ,what we learned from our own experience.It explains basically what we did.I hope it will cover some of the questions faced by any newbie using ATNGW100.

Before i begin i shall say thanks to Mr Pramod CE (for much of the contents is borrowed from his own tutorial,and for his special support and guidance)and my groupmates and especially Prasanth PP who did much of the programming work.

ATNGW100

The Developing Environment of ATNGW100

The developing environment for the Atmel Network Gateway can be setup in Linux operating system.The main source of informaton for programming and customizing ATNGW100 can be obtained from the following locations.

1.The onboard stored information from ATNGW100 itself.It can be accessed by the address

http://10.0.0.1 through a standard webbrowser like Mozilla or IE.(details discussed later).

2.The online support forum for AVR32 at http://www.avrfreaks.net/

3.The following URL, http://www.gnuvision.com/freebird/ holds a good information about building robtic applications using ATNGW100, done by Mr. Pramode C E.

Methods for programming ATNGW100

The ATNGW100 has a 32 bit AP7000 processor and comes with preinstalled Linux with Kernel version 2.6.18 patched for ATNGW100 architecture.The kit can be programmed in two ways,either we can program using the Linux or by erasing the Linux and program the AP7000 using assembly level programminig.Two methods has its own advantages and disadvantages.We preferred the first method because it takes care of almost all the things and makes our life much easier.

AVR32 studio is used for programming the AP7000 processor other than using Linux OS.The Linux

programming can be done in different ways dependin on our requirements.The main methods generally used are

1. Creating an executable file compiled for ATNGW100 in a remote PC and transfer it to the the target and execute it.The executable file is of .elf format and the remote pc can either run AVR toolchain installed under Linux OS or using Cygwin in Windows.The former is generally preferred and currently used in this project.
2. Using kernel module programming and running the applications as kernel modules.This is used in time critical applications PWM generation for controlling servo motors.The developing environment is surely a Linux OS with a kernel patched and complied for the target application(ATNGW100).

Operating System and Building the Tool chain.

The operating system used in our project development are Ubuntu 6.06 and Debian Etch.The first step is to prepare the system for ATNGW100 and this involves insatalling the AVR tool chain.

After the installation of tool chain we will be able to compile executables for the ATNGW100 board in .elf formats using avr32-gcc compiler.

The Ubuntu version has got the advantage that repositories are easily availble from their network.

The Debian Etch can be setup using the AVR BSP(Board Support Package) image version 2 supplied from the Atmel website (http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/AVR32_Linux_BSP_CD_Image_2.0.0.zip)

You can download , unzip and in the debian directory execute “dpkg -i *.deb” and incase of dependencies problem use the four DVDs of Debian Etch to meet the requirements.

Connecting the ATNGW100 to a Debian based system.

The serial port of the ATNGW100 is connected to the PC serial port and the ethernet cable is connected to the LAN port provided in the board. The board requires a power supply 9V-15V DC, ensure that you are using a good power supply able to meet the current requirements.The LAN port is the most current driving unit and if the supply is not good enough then LAN port may not work properly.

Install a terminal program like ‘minicom’ or ‘GtKterm’ in the pc and set the baud rate to 115200 and the appropriate device eg: /dev/ttyS0 and with no parity or flow control.Open up a Gtkterm window.

Now switching on the powesr supply causes the system to boot up, the booting process can be viewed on the gtkterm window.Once the booting process is over you can find the red LED lights up.

The LAN connection can be setup using the ip address 10.0.0.1 of the NGW100 (Usually 10.0.0.1 for the LAN and 10.11.12.1 for the WAN)

Once you have connected the LAN port to your PC you should be able to access the built in web/ftp/telnet servers. To access the webserver, open Firefox or other selected web browser and type in “10.0.0.1″ in the address bar (you could also type “http://ngw.example.net“). You should be presented with a blue website with four options.

you can establish a telnet connection by

$telnet 10.0.0.1

if you want to login as root the default password is ‘roota’

An ftp connection is opened by the

$ftp 10.0.0.1

file can be transfered from current directory to root directory of NGW100 by

$put ‘filename’

connection can be closed by issuing

$bye

Once you ve transferred the needed file eg: hello.elf you must change its permissions to be able to execute

$chmod +x filename

or

$chmod 755 filename

To execute the file you can give

$./filename.elf

Compiling the files using avr32 gcc

The compling process is similar to normal compiling in Unix environment.The the thread programming method is used in this project.The command used is

$avr32-linux-gcc -pthread -o filename.elf filename.c -Ipthread

Using a Custom Kernel

The preinstalled kernel v 2.6.18 came with only one serial port /dev/ttyS0. Although three serial ports are functional in NGW100 the other two are not enabled in the default kernel.So we compiled another kernel with a slight modification.The procedure is as follows.

Get linux-2.6.22.atmel.3.tar.bz2 from http://www.avr32linux.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/LinuxPatches

We won’t enable UART0 as it conflicts with one of the other on-chip peripherals.

The setup file that configures the NGW100 is arch/avr32/boards/atngw100/setup.c. There are two additions that need to be made to the file to enable the serial port.

Change __init setup_board() to:

void __init setup_board(void)

{

at32_map_usart(1, 0); /* USART 1: /dev/ttyS0, DB9 */

at32_map_usart(2, 1); /* USART 2: /dev/ttyS1 */

at32_map_usart(3, 2); /* USART 3: /dev/ttyS2 */

at32_setup_serial_console(0);

}

and add the following lines to the beginning of atngw100_init():

static int __init atngw100_init(void)

{

unsigned i;

/*

* ATNGW100 uses 16-bit SDRAM interface, so we don’t need to

* reserve any pins for it.

*/

at32_add_system_devices();

at32_add_device_usart(0);

at32_add_device_usart(1);

at32_add_device_usart(2);

Now do

make ARCH=avr32 CROSS_COMPILE=avr32-linux- atngw100_defconfig

Now, you can do a

make ARCH=avr32 CROSS_COMPILE=avr-linux- menuconfig

and tweak some parameters. Be aware that changing certain config values can result in a kernel which doesn’t boot properly. Build the kernel by running:

make ARCH=avr32 CROSS_COMPILE=avr32-linux-

make ARCH=avr32 CROSS_COMPILE=avr32-linux- INSTALL_MOD_PATH=./modules modules_install

You should get a file `uImage’ in the folder arch/avr32/boot/images/.

Installing a tftp server

You can use the `synaptic’ package manager and install the packages `tftp’ and `tftpd’. The TFTP server is configured to look under the folder `/srv/tftp’ in Debian etch. Copy the `uImage’ which you have built into this folder. Now, `uboot’ will be able to load it into memory through the ethernet interface and boot it properly.

Configuring Ethernet Interface

t seems that some programs running in the background like to do bizarre things with the network interface – so it might be better to stop those programs before you try any experiment with the board. You can do this by running:

sh /etc/init.d/dbus stop

You can now assign an IP address for the interface:

ifconfig eth1 10.0.0.99

Configuring Uboot

Reboot the board (keep it connected to the PC using the serial port as well as an ethernet cable – also, keep a terminal program like `minicom’ running) and keep the `space’ key pressed. This will result in `uboot’ (the bootloader) suspending the default boot process and dropping into interactive mode. At the uboot prompt, type the following commands:

setenv tftpip 10.0.0.99

setenv ipaddr 10.0.0.1

setenv bootfile uImage

Now, type:

tftpboot

and `uboot’ will download the `uImage’ from the PC and loads it into memory. Running

bootm

will result in this kernel booting!

Booting from SD card

The `u-boot’ boot loader can boot an image from an SD card. Once at the `u-boot’ prompt, type `mmcinit’ to initialize the card – this should also give you some information regarding the card (like its size). The command

ext2ls mmc 0:1 /

will show you all the files in the root directory of the card. Note that for the above command to work, the first partition on the card should be formatted as ext2.

The following commands will load and boot an image present on the card:

ext2load mmc 0:1 0×90400000 uImage

bootm 0×90400000

Once booting is over, you should see /dev/mmcblk0p1 mounted on /media/mmcblk0p1.

`U-boot’ environment variables

By default, the ATNGW100 boots a kernel which resides on the on-board flash memory. The modified kernel is on an SD card – so we have to make sure that when powered on, the ATNGW100 boots from the SD card. This is done by saving proper `environment’ variables.

setenv tftpip 10.0.0.99

setenv ipaddr 10.0.0.1

setenv bootfile uImage

setenv ethact macb1

setenv bootcmd ‘mmcinit;ext2load mmc 0:1 0×90400000 uImage;bootm’

saveenv

Pinouts of the Expnasion connectors in NGW100

The serial port pins can be identified from the following tables

J5 Pin out

alt. 2	alt. 1	port	pin	pin	port	alt. 1	alt. 2
	3.3V		1	2		GND
SSC1 – RX_FRAME	SPI0 – MISO	PA00	3	4	PA01	SPI0 – MOSI	SSC1 – TX_ FRAME
SSC1 – TX_CLOCK	SPI0 – SCK	PA02	5	6	PA03	SPI0 – NPCS0	SSC1 – RX_CLOCK
SSC1 – TX_DATA	SPI0 – NPCS1	PA04	7	8	PA05	SPI0 – NPCS2	SSC1 – RX_DATA
USART0 – RTS	TWI – SDA	PA06	9	10	PA07	TWI – SCL	USART0 – CTS
USART0 – RXD	PSIF – CLOCK0	PA08	11	12	PA09	PSIF – DATA0	USART0 – TXD
PWM – PWM2	SSC0 – RX_FRAME	PA21	13	14	PA22	SSC0 – RX_CLOCK	PWM – PWM3
TIMER1 – A0	SSC0 – TX_CLOCK	PA23	15	16	PA24	SSC0 – TX_FRAME	TIMER1 – A1
TIMER1 – B0	SSC0 – TX_DATA	PA25	17	18	PA26	SSC0 – RX_DATA	TIMER1 – B1
TIMER1 – CLK0	SPI1 – NPCS3	PA27	19	20	PA28	PWM – PWM0	TIMER1 – A2
TIMER1 – B2	PWM -PWM1	PA29	21	22	PA30	SM – GCLK0	TIMER1 – CLK1
TIMER1 – CLK2	SM – GCLK1	PA31	23	24	PB00	ISI – D0	SPI1 – MISO
SPI1 – MOSI	ISI – D1	PB01	25	26	PB02	ISI – D2	SPI1 – NPCS0
SPI1 – NPCS1	ISI – D3	PB03	27	28	PB04	ISI – D4	SPI1 – NPCS2
SPI1 – SCK	ISI – D5	PB05	29	30	PB06	ISI – D6	MMCI – CMD1
USART1 – CTS	SPI0 – NPCS3	PA20	31	32		N.C.
	3.3V		33	34		GND
	3.3V		35	36		GND

J6 Pin out

alt. 2	alt. 1	port	pin	pin	port	alt. 1	alt. 2
	3.3V		1	2		GND
	3.3V		3	4		GND
	N.C.		5	6		N.C.
MMCI – D4	ISI – D7	PB07	7	8	PB08	ISI – HSYNC	MMCI – D5
MMCI – D6	ISI – VSYNC	PB09	9	10	PB10	ISI – PCLK	MMCI – D7
ISI – D8	PSIF – CLOCK1	PB11	11	12	PB12	PSIF – DATA1	ISI – D9
ISI – D10	SSC2 – TX_DATA	PB13	13	14	PB14	SSC2 – RX_DATA	ISI – D11
USART3 – CTS	SSC2 – TX_CLOCK	PB15	15	16	PB16	SSC2 – TX_FRAME	USART3 – RTS
USART3 – TXD	SSC2 – RX_FRAME	PB17	17	18	PB18	SSC2 – RX_CLOCK	USART3 – RXD
USART3 – CLK	SM – GCLK2	PB19	19	20	PB20	DAC – DATA1	AUDIOC – SDO
AUDIOC – SYNC	DAC – DATA0	PB21	21	22	PB22	DAC – DATAN1	AUDIOC – SCLK
AUDIOC – SDI	DAC – DATAN0	PB23	23	24	PB24	DMAC – DMARQ0	NMI – NMI_N
IRQ – EXTINT0	DMAC – DMARQ1	PB25	25	26	PB26	USART2 – RXD	IRQ – EXTINT1
IRQ – EXTINT2	USART2 – TXD	PB27	27	28		WAKE_N
	N.C.		29	30		N.C.
	N.C.		31	32		N.C.
	3.3V		33	34		GND
	3.3V		35	36		GND

J7 Pin out

alt. 2	alt. 1	port	pin	pin	port	alt. 1	alt. 2
EBI – D19	LCD – D0	PE03	1	2	PE04	LCD – D1	EBI – D20
EBI – D21	LCD – D2	PE05	3	4	PE06	LCD – D3	EBI – D22
EBI – D23	LCD – D4	PE07	5	6	PC31	LCD – D5
	LCD – D6	PD00	7	8	PD01	LCD – D7
EBI – D24	LCD – D8	PE08	9	10	PE09	LCD – D9	EBI – D25
EBI – D26	LCD – D10	PE10	11	12	PE11	LCD – D11	EBI – D27
EBI – D28	LCD – D12	PE12	13	14	PD07	LCD – D13
	LCD – D14	PD08	15	16	PD09	LCD – D15
EBI – D29	LCD – D16	PE13	17	18	PE14	LCD – D17	EBI – D30
EBI – D31	LCD – D18	PE15	19	20	PE16	LCD – D19	EBI – A23
EBI – A24	LCD – D20	PE17	21	22	PE18	LCD – D21	EBI – A25
	LCD – D22	PD16	23	24	PD17	LCD – D23
EBI – D17	LCD – DVAL	PE01	25	26	PE02	LCD – MODE	EBI – D18
	LCD – HSYNC	PC20	27	28	PC21	LCD – PCLK
	LCD – VSYNC	PC22	29	30		N.C.
	N.C.		31	32		N.C.
	3.3V		33	34		GND
	3.3V		35	36		GND