Examples User’s Guide

The Proprietary RF examples are split into 2 types:

  • Proprietary RF (RF driver) Examples
  • EasyLink Examples

The RF driver offers low-level APIs to run radio operation commands on the RF core and send and receive raw packets. You can find examples using the RF driver directly in the the prop_rf folder.

The EasyLink layer is an abstraction layer above the RF driver API’s for the more convenience. It uses the RF driver and executes radio operation commands. The EasyLink library was developed to be simple enough for developers to extend for their needs and should be seen as a starting point for adding an API on top of the RF driver. The EasyLink examples show how to develop an RF application on top of the EasyLink API.

Note

The examples are for both 868/915 MHz and 2.4 GHz operation, and they support multiple PHYs. You can provide your own RF settings with any example, allowing you to change both PHY and frequency band as you see fit.

See Section about RF settings for more information on what they are and how to use them.

Proprietary RF Examples

Proprietary RF examples are available for the TI-RTOS Kernel (SYS/BIOS) User’s Guide, but can also be used without any RTOS at all. That is possible with the NoRTOS Driver Porting Layer. Some examples are supported with FreeRTOS.

The Proprietary RF examples can be imported from the following SDK directory: {SDK_INSTALL_DIR}/examples/rtos/<PLATFORM>/prop_rf/

Carrier Wave:

Basic example for RF performance measurements and testing, written directly on top of the TI-RTOS RF driver. Set the radio into various test modes. Transmission of modulated or unmodulated signal. Easy to change radio configuration. Use radio settings exported from SmartRF Studio or use SysConfig to change the settings.
Dual Mode Rx/Tx:
 

(CC1352 Only) Dual Mode Rx/Tx shows how to setup a multi-mode radio. This example in particular configures the radio with BLE and proprietary PHY. These examples also have support for FreeRTOS.
Echo Rx/Tx:

The Echo Tx example transmits a packet and immediately switches over to receiver mode and waits for its echo. The Echo Rx example starts in receiver mode and transmits back any received packets (echo).
Listen Before Talk:
 

The Listen Before Talk (LBT) example illustrates how to implement a simple, proprietary LBT algorithm using the command chaining feature of the CC13xx and CC26xx family.
Packet Error Rate:
 

The Packet Error Rate (PER) example showcases different RF transfer modes of the CC13xx and CC26xx. Multiple packets are transmitted or received and the packet error rate is calculated. The result is shown on an LCD/UART display.
Packet Rx/Tx:

Simple examples that show how to send and receive packets using the RF driver. These examples also have support for FreeRTOS.
Synchronized Packet Rx/Tx:
 

In this example you will learn how to build a time-synchronized connection between a transmitter and a receiver. This leads to the lowest possible power consumption on both sides. Time synchronization also builds the foundation for Frequency and Time Division Multiple Access, FDMA and TDMA respectively.
Wake On Radio Rx/Tx:
 

These examples showcase the Wake-on-Radio (WoR) functionality of the CC13xx and CC26xx family to significantly lower the power consumption of an RF link by duty cycling the RF core. It shows how to use the RF driver to schedule automatic wake-ups and send messages with long preambles.

RF Settings; What are they and how to use them

All proprietary RF applications require a set of RF settings, often referred to as “smartrf_settings” (exported from SmartRF Studio), or “ti_radio_config” (generated by SysConfig) in order to achieve optimum performance for a specific PHY. Be aware that this is not only required for the proprietary PHY, but also all other PHYs, such as BLE, IEEE 802.15.4, etc.

These RF settings, usually represented as a single pair of C header and source files in your project, must at minimum define a Setup Radio Operation command, RF core firmware patches, and RF core register overrides. Additional RF commands can be defined which are relevant to your PHY and application. See PHY Configuration for a more in-depth explanation of how the actual configuration works.

Configuring RF Settings

The main tool used for configuring RF settings is SysConfig. To learn more about SysConfig, and how this can be used to modify your settings, see Adding RF Settings.

Running Examples in Code Composer Studio (CCS)

The following walks through importing and building one of the proprietary RF examples using the CCS IDE and the TI Resource Explorer.

  1. If CCS is not already installed; download and install CCS from the Code Composer Studio tool page.

    If it is installed it is recommended that you install the available updates.

  2. Download and install the SimpleLink CC13xx/CC26xx SDK from here:

    https://www.ti.com/tool/SIMPLELINK-CC13XX-CC26XX-SDK.

  3. Open CCS, and use the menu option Project -> Import CCS Projects....

  4. Browse to the examples folder in the SDK installation directory (C:/ti/simplelink_cc13xx_cc26xx_sdk_x_xx_xx_xx/examples) and select which example to import. We recommend using the CCS compiler, but compiling with GSS in the CCS IDE is also possible.

  5. As well as the example selected there is also the tirtos_builds project which is a platform and compiler specific TIRTOS build. This will only build once and is shared by all the projects for that platform and compiler in your workspace.

    ../_images/projectworkspace.png

    Figure 7. CCS Project workspace

  6. Build and download and debug the project by clicking on the ‘bug’. The first time it will take some time due to the TI-RTOS build.

    ../_images/bug.png

    Figure 8. CCS Debug

  7. Click run to run the example.

    ../_images/run.png

    Figure 9. CCS Run

An alternative way of downloading examples without downloading the SDK is to use Resource Explorer inside the CCS IDE. Open Resource Explorer by using menu option View -> Resource Explorer, locate the project you want to use, and follow the steps to download and build the project.

Running Examples in IAR

  1. Download and install the SimpleLink CC13xx/CC26xx SDK from here:

    https://www.ti.com/tool/SIMPLELINK-CC13XX-CC26XX-SDK.

  2. Please make sure you’re using the IAR version which is recomended in the SimpleLink CC13xx/CC26xx SDK release notes. If IAR Arm Workbench is not already installed, download and install IAR Workbench for Arm from http://www.iar.com.

  3. When building projects in IAR, it is recommended to enable all build messages. This can be done by right-clicking in the Build window and selecting “All” as shown below:

    ../_images/iar_enable_build_messages.png

    Figure 10. Enabling build messages in IAR

  4. Import the IAR Custom Argument Variables file with the menu option Tools -> Configure Custom Argument Variables. The location and file to be imported is C:/ti/simplelink_cc13xx_cc26xx_sdk_x_xx_xx_xx/tools/iar/SIMPLELINK_CC13XX_CC26XX_SDK.custom_argvars.

    ../_images/iar-argvars.png

    Figure 11. Custom Argument Variables

  5. Import the project by using the menu option File -> Open Workspace... and navigate to the examples folder in the SDK installation folder (C:/ti/simplelink_cc13xx_cc26xx_sdk_x_xx_xx_xx/examples). Select the .eww file of the project you want to import. This file is a template, so you will be prompted to save the workspace in another location.

  6. When the workspace have been saved, you can build the project by right-clicking on the project and then press “Make”.

  7. Download and debug the example with the menu option Project -> Download and Debug.

Building Examples From the Command Line

All examples can be built from command line using plain makefiles in 3 steps:

  1. Configure the toolchain paths
  2. Build the kernel (only when using TI-RTOS kernel)
  3. Build the example

Note

To avoid problems with spaces in paths, it is recommended to use a Unix shell like Bash as command line environment instead of the native command interpreter cmd.exe in Windows.

The toolchain paths are configured in a imports.mak in the SDK installation root folder. Open the file in an editor and modify the toolchain install paths lines depending on which toolchain you are going to use and where they are installed on your system.

# The shown versions are just examples.
XDC_INSTALL_DIR        ?= c:/ti/xdctools_3_50_03_33_core

CCS_ARMCOMPILER        ?= c:/ti/ccsv7/tools/compiler/ti-cgt-arm_16.9.3.LTS
GCC_ARMCOMPILER        ?= c:/ti/ccsv7/tools/compiler/gcc-arm-none-eabi-6-2017-q1-update
IAR_ARMCOMPILER        ?= c:/Program Files (x86)/IAR Systems/Embedded Workbench 8.0/arm

Once that is done, the TI-RTOS kernel can be built. This step is not necessary for No-RTOS examples. In order to build the kernel, select a specific development board and build the release configuration. The makefile can be found in the folder <SDK_INSTALL_DIR>/kernel/tirtos/builds/<BOARD>/release/<TOOLCHAIN>. Example:

$ cd /c/ti/simplelink_cc13x2_sdk_1_xx_xx_xx/kernel/tirtos/builds/CC1352R1_LAUNCHXL/release/gcc
$ make

Finally, the examples can be built. Navigate to the desired example and invoke make:

$ cd /c/ti/simplelink_cc13x2_sdk_1_xx_xx_xx/rtos/CC1352R1_LAUNCHXL/prop_rf/rfSynchronizedPacketRx/tirtos/gcc
$ make -j4

The resulting .out file is a regular ELF file that can be flashed to the device or converted into a binary or an Intel Hex file for other purpose, for instance, over-the-air download. Example for objcopy from the GNU binutils package:

$ arm-none-eabi-objcopy -S --gap-fill 0xff -O binary rfSynchronizedPacketRx.out rfSynchronizedPacketRx.bin
$ arm-none-eabi-objcopy -S -O ihex rfSynchronizedPacketRx.out rfSynchronizedPacketRx.hex