CC2652R: Best approach for test transceiver setup

Henrik Smeds

Part Number: CC2652R

Hi!

We are developing a product that communicates over a custom protocol on 802.15.4 and is looking for a good and hopefully easy way of creating a test sender/reader that we could use during development and in a regression test environment. The ideal solution for us would probably be a firmware running on a dev kit that we can transmit commands to from a host and a python api on the host that we can use from our test environment. Are there anything like that already available?

I did some looking into the SmartRF Packet Sniffer 2 user guide, and it looks like writing a python API for that would be a solution (even though an existing solution probably would be better).

Any ideas? Is the Packet Sniffer 2 firmware and our own python api the way to go?

BR Henrik

4 months ago

0 Toby Pan 4 months ago

TI__Mastermind 28490 points

Hi Henrik,

From what I remember, the packet sniffer is only for RX, if you need to TX as well, you'll probably need a different system.

We do have rfDiagnostics example that you can consider: https://dev.ti.com/tirex/explore/node?node=A__AJr46oDVYcLKqrDRYHOVIA__com.ti.SIMPLELINK_CC13XX_CC26XX_SDK_PROPRF_MODULE__BSEc4rl__LATEST

It runs off of serial commands (UART), and running on our launchpads, it can take input from keyboard.
It follows then, the possibility to access it remotely with, say, SSH remotely into the host and access the serial port.

The rfDiagnostics may be modified to handle your custom tests.

Thanks,
Toby

0 Henrik Smeds 4 months ago in reply to Toby Pan

Prodigy 20 points

Hi Toby,

Since it's possible to (I think?) transmit data from the packet sniffer in SmartRF Studio I suppose the sniffer-fw should have support? However, when looking more closely at the command interface (https://software-dl.ti.com/lprf/packet_sniffer_2/docs/user_guide/html/sniffer_fw/firmware/command_interface.html#table-uart-packet-field-descriptions) I cannot find suitable commands.

I had a glance at rfDiagnostics as well, but was hopingI would not need to writing my own firmware.

BR Henrik

0 Toby Pan 4 months ago in reply to Henrik Smeds

TI__Mastermind 28490 points

Hi Henrik,

Henrik Smeds said:
packet sniffer in SmartRF Studio

Packet Sniffer and SmartRF Studio are two different tools. From radio perspective, Packet Sniffer only receives packets.

Henrik Smeds said:
I had a glance at rfDiagnostics as well, but was hopingI would not need to writing my own firmware.

Given the current details of your request, it looks like you would need to design firmware. If you run into issues along the way, we can try to help.

Thanks,
Toby

0 Henrik Smeds 4 months ago in reply to Toby Pan

Prodigy 20 points

Hi again Toby,

Im a beginner on TI tools, sorry for the confusion.

I was referring to the Packet TX feature in SmartRF Studio Device Control Panel and for some reason I assumed that the sniffer-fw (used by SmartRF Sniffer 2 and linked above) was used on my launchpad dk when doing that.

The firmware/api used by SmartRF Studio is perhaps not publicly available?

BR Henrik

+1 Toby Pan 4 months ago in reply to Henrik Smeds

TI__Mastermind 28490 points

Hi Henrik,

No problem, glad I could help clarify.

SmartRF Studio puts the device in a special mode, where the device is not technically running instructions from flash (so any FW present on the device is unaffected by SmartRF Studio).

Henrik Smeds said:
The firmware/api used by SmartRF Studio is perhaps not publicly available?

There is a library for this, please refer to this post: https://e2e.ti.com/support/wireless-connectivity/sub-1-ghz-group/sub-1-ghz/f/sub-1-ghz-forum/653224/smartrftm-studio-command-line-version-of-smartrf-studio
(In my version of SmartRF Studio, 2.29.0, it is called "SmartRF Test Environment".

Thanks,
Toby

0 Henrik Smeds 4 months ago in reply to Toby Pan

Prodigy 20 points

That is _almost_ exactly what I was looking for!! It seems though that the degree of freedom there might not be good enough as you suggested in your first reply. We have some timing requirements that I was hoping could be solved from host using something like startTime on radio operations, but RTLib does not seem o have support for that.

But good, now we know that the way forward most likely is our own FW, thanks for your help!

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CC2652R: Best approach for test transceiver setup