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TivaWare Setup for catkin build

Description: This tutorial shows step-by-step how to setup up TI's Tivaware SDK

Tutorial Level: INTERMEDIATE

Next Tutorial: Hello world publisher for EK-TM4C123GXL

Introduction

Energia IDE is great for quick development of TivaC applications. However on bigger projects it can become cumbersome or unmanageable.

This tutorial assumes you already have set up a cross-compilation environment based on arm-none-eabi GNU toolchain and TivaWare libraries on Linux, and already are completly comfortable compiling and flashing your applications.

Compatible with SW-TM4C-2.1.1.71 onwards

Only the following boards are compatible with rosserial_tivac:

• EK-TM4C123GXL
• EK-TM4C1294XL

Setting up cross-compilation environment

Here are some quick steps to configure your toolchain if you haven't already. These instruction are not extensive by any means. You may run into problems, errors and incompatibilities.

Obtain your GNU toolchain for ARM Cortex-M & Cortex-R processors.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-gcc-arm-embedded/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-embedded

Get the flashing tool

Build and install

git clone https://github.com/utzig/lm4tools.git
cd lm4tools/lm4flash
make
sudo cp lm4flash /usr/local/bin

Add rules for USB devices

If you haven't already done so, you have to add device rules.

echo 'ATTRS{idVendor}=="1cbe", ATTRS{idProduct}=="00fd", GROUP="users", MODE="0660"' | \
sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-stellaris-launchpad.rules

Download and extract TivaWare

Download SW-TM4C: TivaWare for C Series Software (Complete) from TI's website.

Extract it to directory of your choosing. Example:

mkdir <TivaWarePah>
cd <TivaWarePah>
mv <directory_downloaded>/SW-TM4C-2.1.1.71.exe
unzip SW-TM4C-2.1.1.71.exe
rm SW-TM4C-2.1.1.71.exe

Test cross-compilation and flashing

Navigate into one of the example projects and build a test project.

cd <path_to_tivaware>/examples/boards/ek-tm4c123gxl/blinky
make
lm4flash gcc/blinky.bin

If no error occurred so far, you can continue the guide.

Set up environment variables

rosserial_tivac uses two environment variables to find Tivaware path and the flash tool.

In your .bashrc set the variables:

export TIVA_WARE_PATH=$HOME/<path_to_tivaware_root>
export TIVA_FLASH_EXECUTABLE=lm4flash

And run:

source .bashrc

Install rosserial_tivac

You can install rosserial_tivac from source, either using the remaining rosserial pacakges from debs or from source.

Follow one of the two options:

1. rosserial_tivac from binaries
2. rosserial_tivac from source + rosserial binaries

rosserial and rosserial_tivac from ROS repositories

Example of how to install rosserial packages in binary form for Jade.

sudo apt-get install ros-jade-rosserial ros-jade-rosserial-msgs ros-jade-rosserial-client ros-jade-rosserial-python ros-jade-rosserial-tivac

rosserial_tivac from source + rosserial binaries

rosserial_tivac can be found on the repository: https://github.com/vmatos/rosserial_tivac

Make sure you have rosserial package installed, either from binaries or source.

Installing rosserial binaries

Example of how to install rosserial packages in binary form for Jade.

sudo apt-get install ros-jade-rosserial ros-jade-rosserial-msgs ros-jade-rosserial-client ros-jade-rosserial-python

Download and build rosserial_tivac

Navigate to your ROS workspace. Clone the git repository. Then build and install the package.

cd <workspace_dir>/src
git clone https://github.com/vmatos/rosserial_tivac.git
cd <workspace_dir>
catkin_make
catkin_make install

Next tutorials

If you've reach this point without encountering any error, you can now proceed to get hold of the rosserial_tivac_tutorials package.

Install from source rosserial_tivac_tutorials

Build the package.

cd <workspace_dir>/src
git clone https://github.com/vmatos/rosserial_tivac_tutorials.git
cd <workspace_dir>
catkin_make rosserial_tivac_tutorials_generate_messages
source devel/setup.bash
catkin_make

Carry on with the remaining tutorials: Hello world publisher.

Addendum: Tivaware USB library bug

At time of writing, Tivaware contains a known bug on its USB libraries. The author of this guide is not aware to what extent the bug affects the communication abilities with ROS.

On the file which implements the USB ring buffer: usblib/usbbuffer.c, one reads:

USBBufferInfoGet(const tUSBBuffer *psBuffer, tUSBRingBufObject *psRingBuf)
    (...)
        psRingBuf->ui32Size = psBufVars->sRingBuf.ui32ReadIndex;

And should be:

        psRingBuf->ui32Size = psBufVars->sRingBuf.ui32Size;