Setting up the BLE OAD Environment

This section will cover the steps required to setup a BLE OAD environment.

The BLE OAD topology is described below. Refer to Figure 93. for a review of the devices involved in an OAD.

  • OAD Distributor: BTool connected to Host Test on CC2640R2F LaunchPad.
  • OAD Target: BLE sample application (simple_peripheral) with OAD functionality enabled.

Note

TI provides mobile applications that support OAD, these are outside of the scope of the OAD guide. Refer to the Quick Start Guide for more information.

Prerequisites

This section requires the following hardware and software components

OAD Target Setup

In order to perform a BLE OAD, an OAD capable image must be loaded onto the OAD target device. This section will cover the steps required to load the CC2640R2F LaunchPad with an OAD enabled BLE image.

  1. Navigate to the simple_peripheral_oad_offchip or simple_peripheral_oad_onchip folder inside the BLE-Stack.

  2. Import the project into the workspace of your selected IDE.

    • See the Quick Start Guide for instructions on how to work with your selected IDE.

    1. Navigate to bim_offchip or bim_onchip folder (respective to your chosen project) inside the nortos folder.

      • If bim_onchip is used, enable the AUTHENTICATE_PERSISTENT_IMG define in the project’s .opt file if an authenticated persistent application is desired. By default, this is enabled.

    2. Import the project into the workspace.

  3. Select the proper build configuration based on security needs:

    • FlashROM: will use security and is the default configuration
    • FlashROM_unsecure: will not use security
    • Be sure that all projects configurations are in sync. If one _unsecure project is used, all other projects should use the unsecure flavor as well.
    • Based on the project configuration, the proper version of the OAD Image Tool will be used. If security is enabled the signature is automatically added to the image.

    Warning

    OAD security is only supported using off-chip OAD.

  4. (on-chip OAD only) Build and flash the persistent app project

    Warning

    The build steps must be done in order, or errors will occur

    • Uniflash must be used to flash the _oad.bin persistent image that is produced by the oad_image_tool or the device will not boot after a reset. When flashing the persistent image .bin file, you must specify the binary load address as the starting address specified in the persistent application project’s linker file. By default, this is at address: 0x00014000.
    • The _oad.bin file contains CRC and (if applicable) security information about the image. This is used by the BIM on boot to determine the validity of an image.

  5. Build and flash the stack project directly in the IDE

  6. Build and flash the app project using UNIFLASH

    • Flash the _oad.bin image that is produced by the oad_image_tool or the device will not boot after a reset.
    • The _oad.bin file contains CRC and (if applicable) security information about the image. This is used by the BIM on boot to determine which image to run. If the image is flashed directly from the IDE, the device will not boot after subsequent resets as either CRC or security information is missing See Create Merged Production Image for more information.

  7. Build and flash the BIM project directly in the IDE

    • The BIM DEBUG option(Project Settings -> Build -> ARM Compiler -> Predefined Symbols: DEBUG) will disable CRC checks on the image (for off-chip), making it possible to flash an image straight from the IDE.
    • If your device does not boot, it is likely that you have either forgotten to load the app project (_oad.bin) through uniflash or there might be different build configurations (secure/unsecure) for the bim/app/persistent/stack, see Create Merged Production Image for more info.

  8. Verify the device has booted up and is advertising

    • Verification: Open a terminal window with 115200 8N1 to the XDS110 Class Application/User UART port corresponding to your CC2640R2F LaunchPad.
    • The console should display the text below, use it to get the BLE address. Note that this text may be different between on and off-chip OAD, but the concept is the same.
    ../_images/sbp_oad_boot_screen.png

  9. Alternatively, you can get the BLE address of the device using UNIFLASH.

    • See the screenshot below for how to do this in UNIFLASH.
    ../_images/verify_bdaddr_uniflash.png

  10. Plug/unplug the device to prevent Halt In Boot (HIB)

    • If the device does not advertise after reset, ensure the _oad.bin file was loaded.

OAD Distributor Setup

As per the Introduction section, the OAD Distributor is the device responsible for fragmenting an OAD enabled image in to chunks of OAD blocks and sending each block over the to the OAD Target device as they are requested.

In the case of BLE, the OAD Distributor is a combination of BTool running on the PC connected to host_test running on a CC2640R2F LaunchPad. host_test is a BLE enabled network processor application. BTool is a PC tool that is capable of interfacing to host_test and performing various BLE functions in addition to OAD. For more information, refer to the host_test README file or the BTool User’s Guide.

Flashing the host_test Image

See below for the steps to setup the host_test image on a CC2640R2F LaunchPad.

  1. Navigate to hexfiles folder within the BLE-Stack.
  2. Select the host_test_*.hex file.
  3. Flash the above hexfile using UNIFLASH. See image below
../_images/host_test_uniflash.png

Connecting BTool to host_test

BTool and host_test communicate via USB through the XDS110 UART back channel. See below for a diagram

../_images/ditaa-a59affabe57be29f72a0c4b1672569165bb04124.png

  1. Find the port used by the UART backchannel of the CC2640R2F LaunchPad running host_test. This is the one with the name XDS110 Class Application/User UART

  2. Open BTool (see the BTool executable in the tools folder of the BLE-Stack)

  3. Use the following serial port settings, hit OK

    • Port: <PORT_FROM_ABOVE_STEP>
    • Other settings: 115200 8N1

  4. This should open and initialize the host_test device.

  5. Pressing the scan button should populate a list of devices in the log

    • A screenshot of a properly initialized BTool session is shown below
    ../_images/btool_init_success.png