STG-8nn-Scaffold

A base project for programming the BARTH® STG-8nn mini-PLCs.

Note (2024): this project will no longer be updated.

Motivation

This project serves as a scaffold to make firmware in C for the BARTH® STG-8nn mini-PLCs, using macOS or Linux + Docker as the development platform. For an example on how to use this project, refer to the one provided in the stg-8nn-scaffold-example repository.

Design Goals

• Use a modern embedded real-time framework, i.e., Quantum Leaps's QP™/C.
• Use Linux or macOS as the development platform.
• Use the DroneCAN protocol over CAN bus for communication.

Main Software Components

• QP™/C using the QK kernel.
• ST's STM32Cube™, specifically, STM32F0's LL drivers and HAL.
• Libcanard

You should be acquainted with the QP™/C framework, DroneCAN and their concepts in order to use this project effectively.

Building instructions

Hardware

• BARTH® STG-8nn (mini-PLC)
• ST-Link v2 (In-Circuit Programmer)
• MikroElektronika IrDA-To-PC Board (MIKROE-441)
• Kvaser Leaf Light Rugged HS

Getting the code

git clone https://github.com/adolfogc/stg-8nn-scaffold.git
cd stg-8nn-scaffold
git submodule init
git submodule update --init --recursive

Getting the toolchain and the flashing utility

See .devcontainer directory.

Compiling the project

GNU Arm:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DSTG_MODEL:STRING=850 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=arm-gcc-toolchain.cmake -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON -GNinja ..
cmake --build .

LLVM Arm:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DSTG_MODEL:STRING=850 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=arm-clang-toolchain.cmake -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON -GNinja ..
cmake --build .

4. Compilation database

The above commands use the -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON flag so that CMake generates a compilation database. You can use it to check how the source files will get compiled by inspecting the generated file compile_commands.json. Also, other tools like Cppcheck and Clang-Tidy use this file.

Flashing the firmware

# Flash it using openocd:
openocd \
  -f ../openocd/stm32f0x-stlinkv2.cfg \
  -f ../openocd/stm32f0x-utils.cfg \
  -c "custom_flash firmware.bin" \
  -c "shutdown"

# Flash it using st-flash (currently not working for me):
st-flash write firmware.bin 0x0800000

License

For more information see COPYING.

References

A compilation of some useful references that were consulted when creating this project is available in the doc/REFERENCES.md file.