LP-CC1352P7: Some questions about Wi-SUN development

Tim Cruise

Part Number: LP-CC1352P7
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: WI-SUN

Dear TI Engineers,

Finally, I have completed my test Wi-SUN Network on a Raspberry Pi 4. I can also run the built-in Wi-SUN monitor web portal.

I still have some questions about this technology:

From within a Linux host connecting to a border router, I can ping router node through spinel-cli.py. They can respond in about 50ms. Then, I exited spinel-cli, started wfantund and wfan0 interface was up successfully. However, node can never respond to ping in terminal when I issued command
ping6 -c 10 -I wfan0 node_ip6 . Web dashboard also fails to ping nodes. Please advice.
Document about RF range estimation lacks a feature about the antenna installation height. I recall that this was a great feature in the older version of this document where we could input the height and refreshed the estimation. Could you please resume this feature?
In another post, your staff said each node must join a border router according to parameter "networkname". So is it possible to have more than one border router within the same Wi-SUN network (same networkname)?
In my country, the assigned free Sub-1GHz band is from 920MHz to 925MHz. Do I have to adjust this parameter to the average value 922.5MHz?

Yours faithfully,

Timmy

6 months ago

0 Marie H 6 months ago

TI__Guru* 76891 points

Hi Tim,

1. Not sure what's going on here. Can you make a sniffer log to make sure the BR is actually sending a ping? You will need to run your network on a single channel so the sniffer can pick up every packet. Please see:

https://dev.ti.com/tirex/explore/content/simplelink_cc13xx_cc26xx_sdk_7_40_00_77/docs/ti_wisunfan/html/wisun-guide/debugging-index.html#packet-sniffer

2. I will ask a colleage to answer this.

3. Yes, you can have several BRs with the same networkname (but they should always have different PAN IDs). The RN will solicit PAN advertisements from all networks within range and select a network with the correct networkname.

If more than one PAN with the same networkname is within range, the RN will select the network with the best conditions and connect to it. E.g. select the network which gives fewest hops to reach the BR.

4. You will need to check the box for "Select a Custom Channel Plan". Then select your new channel 0 inside the Radio box.

Cheers,

Marie H

0 Tim Cruise 6 months ago in reply to Marie H

Intellectual 857 points

Hello Marie,

I have got the Sniffer dashboard but do not know how to debug.

0 Marie H 6 months ago in reply to Tim Cruise

TI__Guru* 76891 points

Hi Tim,

This sniffer log only shows advertisements, it doesn't seem like the devices are connected (or maybe the sniffer wasn't able to follow the connection).

Cheers,

Marie H

0 RGW 6 months ago in reply to Marie H

TI__Mastermind 31330 points

2. The height can still be entered into the excel sheet in the E5 and G5 cells. This has not changed since the previous versions.

0 Tim Cruise 6 months ago in reply to Marie H

Intellectual 857 points

Hi Marie,

My Wi-SUN dashboard status showed a question mark. What does it imply?

and do you think whether wfan0 shows any abnormality?

wfan0: flags=4305<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,NOARP,MULTICAST>  mtu 1280
        inet6 2020:abcd::212:4b00:14f9:675c  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x0<global>
        inet6 fe80::212:4b00:14f9:675c  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        inet6 fe80::4040:b9de:288b:42a4  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        unspec 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  txqueuelen 500  (UNSPEC)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 12  bytes 844 (844.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

0 Tim Cruise 6 months ago in reply to RGW

Intellectual 857 points

Yes, I can enter values there.

0 Marie H 6 months ago in reply to Tim Cruise

TI__Guru* 76891 points

Hi Tim,

This questionmark refers to the status between the host device and the BR device. The BR device is not responding over the NCP interface.

Cheers,

Marie H

0 Tim Cruise 6 months ago in reply to Marie H

Intellectual 857 points

Marie,

I issue sudo wfanctl and it was the status of my border router. Is there any sign of failure?

Particularly, "NCP:State" => "associated:no-parent" . Is it a sign of failure?

$ sudo wfanctl
DEBUG: isatty(fileno(stdin)) = 1
DEBUG: Will use interface 'wfan0'.
DEBUG: trying dbus_bus_get(DBUS_BUS_SYSTEM). . .
DEBUG: DBusConnection: 0x55b48e7380
DEBUG: Registering DBusConnection. . .
DEBUG: DBusConnection registered.
DEBUG: Requesting DBus name "com.nestlabs.WPANTunnelDriver.wpanctl". . .
DEBUG: Requesting DBus name "com.nestlabs.WPANTunnelDriver.wpanctl" succeded.
DEBUG: Performing wpantund version check. . .
DEBUG: Version check, wpanctl=2, wpantund=2
DEBUG: wpantund version check succeded.
Initializing readline
wfanctl:wfan0> status
wfan0 => [
        "NCP:State" => "associated:no-parent"
        "Daemon:Enabled" => true
        "NCP:Version" => "TIWISUNFAN/1.0.2; RELEASE; Apr 16 2024 20:04:11"
        "Daemon:Version" => "0.08.00d (/6e0b12f-dirty; Apr 17 2024 17:45:02)"
        "Config:NCP:DriverName" => "spinel"
        "NCP:HardwareAddress" => [00124B0014F9675C]
        "Network:NodeType" => "0 : Border Router"
        "Network:PANID" => 0xABCD
]
wfanctl:wfan0>

+1 Sid 6 months ago in reply to Tim Cruise

TI__Mastermind 20402 points

Hi Tim,

There is a limitation currently with the wfantund solution.

For it to function correctly, you need to set interface up and set stack up through wfanctl after wfantund has started.

If you have already set up the interface and stack through pyspinel or used autostart, wfantund is not able to fully function and gives the status associated no parent and also the symbol you see.

To fix this, you need to reset the Border Router and you should set up the wisun network through a new wfantund and wfanctl.

I have filed a ticket to fix this behavior and allow wfantund and wfanctl to operate when there is an already active border router and will be fixed in a future release.

Regards,

Sid

0 Tim Cruise 6 months ago in reply to Sid

Intellectual 857 points

Sid, Yes! You are correct!

I disabled the autostart option of my Border Router and recompile its firmware.

Then, started interface and stack from within wfanctl CLI. The question mark has gone and node can be pinged correctly!

Thank you very much!

So, we have to write scripts to execute wfantund and wfanctl commands one by one every time we restart out border router Linux host, right?

However, I`ve found a very severe problem. These commands cannot be executed on a terminal command line by themselves:

sudo /usr/local/bin/wfanctl set interface:up true &
sudo /usr/local/bin/wfanctl set stack:up true &

One must run:
sudo wfanctl

and enter its CLI.

So how do we automate wfanctl command on system startup?

0 Sid 6 months ago in reply to Tim Cruise

TI__Mastermind 20402 points

Hi Tim,

If it helps, wfanctl can also read commands from a file.

An example (.sh) shell script that would use such an approach would be:

gnome-terminal -- bash -c "/usr/local/sbin/wfantund; exec bash"
sleep 5
gnome-terminal -- bash -c "/usr/local/bin/wfanctl -f '/home/wisun/ti/testfiles/ncp_commands.txt'; exec bash"
sleep 5

The above script starts wfantund and wfanctl. It reads commands from ncp_commands.txt and executes them. An example ncp_commands.txt is as follows.

status
set interface:up true
set stack:up true
get connecteddevices
quit

Regards,

Sid

Sub-1 GHz

Sub-1 GHz forum

LP-CC1352P7: Some questions about Wi-SUN development