BeagleBoard/GSoC/2022 Proposal/GreybusforZephyrUpdates

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Proposal

About Student: Harshil Bhatt
Mentors: Vaishnav Achath, Jason Kridner

Status

This project is currently just a proposal.

Proposal

  • The PR for "Hello World" task #163

About you

Github: harshilbhatt2001
School: Manipal Institute of Technology
Country: India
Primary language : English
Typical work hours: 2PM-1AM Indian Standard Time
Previous GSoC participation: This is my first time applying to participate for GSoC.

About your project

Project name: Greybus for Zephyr Updates

Description

Greybus is an application layer for UniPro. UniPro follows the classical OSI model, and UniPro communications happen over bidirectional connections between entities. The physical bus is attached to the connected device, which will be running Zephyr. A virtual bus, corresponding to the physical bus on the connected device, is created on the Linux side. The functionality of the physical bus and virtual bus appears the same to a user. Greybus is used to exchange bus-specific messages and data between the connected device and Linux.

Currently, the following modules are supported by greybus-for-zephyr

  • GPIO
  • I2C
  • SPI

The aim of this project is to support all relevant peripherals (UART, PWM, ADC, GPIO IRQ) on BeagleConnect Freedom on Greybus for Zephyr. This involves adding platform specific changes to enable these protocols and interface to existing NuttX sources. The device drivers will be merged into the kernel. These device drivers will be compatible with mikrobus add-on boards, and each peripheral will be tested over a mikrobus add-on board over Greybus using its corresponding driver in the kernel.

Software Requirements

The majority of this project involves writing device drivers, and interfacing it with the Zephyr RTOS. This is done in the C programming language and will be cross-compiled using the GCC compiler.

Hardware Requirements

  • Beagleconnect freedom
  • MikroElectronica boards for all relevant peripherals (any one board for each peripheral is required to successfully complete this project)
  • UART
  1. GPS Click
  2. Ultrasonic 2 Click
  • PWM
  1. Buzz 2 Click
  2. Haptic 2 Click
  • ADC
  1. Three-Axis Accelerometer Board
  2. Force Click
  • GPIO
  1. Water detect Click
  2. Relay Click
  • General hardware requirements (LEDs, Resistors, Capacitors)

Timeline

Provide a development timeline with a milestone each of the 11 weeks and any pre-work. (A realistic timeline is critical to our selection process.)

Date Status Details
Presubmission
  • Setup zephyr environment and build a board for native POSIX execution (completed)
  • Blink an LED using Linux, Zephyr and Greybus via BLE
May 20th - June 12th Community Bonding
  • Required hardware will be available to me, and I will start flashing Zephyr on Beagleconnect Freedom
  • Start going through the documentation and data sheet of the hardware available.
June 13th Milestone #1
  • Introduction Video
  • Device driver code for PWM
  • Test code on the add-on board mentioned above
June 20th Milestone #2
  • Device driver code for ADC
  • Test code on the add-on board mentioned above
June 27th Milestone #3
  • Device driver code for UART
  • Test code on the add-on board mentioned above
July 4th Milestone #4
  • Device driver code for GPIO IRQ
  • Test code on the add-on board mentioned above
July 11th Milestone #5
July 18th Milestone #6
July 25th Milestone #7
  • Phase 1 Evaluation Deadline
August 1st Milestone #8
August 8th Milestone #9
August 15th Milestone #10
August 22nd Milestone #11
August 29th Milestone #12
  • Submit final work product and final mentor evaluation
  • Complete YouTube video
Sep. 5th Milestone #13
  • Completion of GSoC

Experience and approach

  • I am a third-year undergrad having a good understanding of C, C++, ARM assembly and Python. Several of these languages have been used in my coursework too.
  • I was a firmware engineer intern at Sensegrass, and an Embedded System Engineer at Retisense. I have worked on Bluetooth Low Energy, where I improved throughput, interfaced various sensors over an I2C bus and optimized runtime memory with an innovative solution.
  • I have developed drivers for common peripherals (SPI, UART, I2C, ADC, GPIO IRQ, etc) using either bare-metal C or an underlying RTOS.
  • I am also developing a wireless body sensor network based on the Zephyr RTOS, where I have utilized the Nordic BLE stack along with LittleFS to propose a novel encryption scheme of collected sensor data.


Contingency

There is a lot of documentation on Greybus, and some drivers (GPIO) have been merged into the Linux kernel which should provide a good reference. Along with this, the Beagle and Zephyr have an active community that can be looked to for help.

Benefit

The major advantage of Greybus is that drivers can be maintained in Linux rather than microcontroller firmware. This gives us the ability to reuse existing Linux device drivers to access remote devices and reduces development time significantly. Since most application logic is kept out of the microcontroller firmware and in a better centralized location, updates can be better tested and deployed frequently.

Misc

I have completed the requirements stated in the ideas page,the cross compilation task can be found here and the created the pull request can be found here

Suggestions

Is there anything else we should have asked you?