RaceCapture/Pro Firmware

The premier open source telemetry system for your race vehicle. RaceCapture/Pro is a hardware device that is installed in your vehicle that beams driving and vehicle telemetry to the cloud in real time. Combined with RaceCapture App and RaceCapture Live, teams and drivers can use the platform to learn how to drive faster an drive better, giving them the edge to win.

Contributing

Please checkout the contributing document and follow all rules in there prior to submitting pull requests.

Development

The only fully supported building system for RaceCapture Firmware is most any modern Linux based operating system.

Working Development Platforms

The following are platforms that are known to work:

• Fedora (x86_64) >= 18
• Centos >= 7
• Ubuntu (x86_64) >= 14.04
• Debian >= Jessie

Vagrant Development Image

We will also support development on non-linux machines through the use of a Vagrant image. This will allow any developer with a computer capable of running virtualization to compile firmware.

Flashing Custom Firmware

Updating firmware to unreleased versions may restore the default configuration on RaceCapture/Pro Be sure to save your configuration using the Race Analyzer software. We will do what we can to help but do understand that this is unreleased code, and sometimes it has bugs.

Platforms

The project is designed with multiple platforms in mind. Most platforms are hardware based but the testing platform is a pseudo platform that we use for mock operations to test our firmware. Info on each platform and how to use/compile for it can be found below.

Simple Build All Tool

To make things super simple there is a script called do_release.sh that will build all platforms and test. To invoke it simply run ./do_release.sh from the root directory of the project.

MK1

MK1 is the original RaceCapture/Pro unit. Based on the AT91SAM7s chipset, it provided a solid platform for our initial release. It allows for up to a 100Hz channel sampling rate and up to 10Hz GPS sampling. It also supports CAN & OBD-II via the extrernal CANx module, various I/O, an SD card, and a remote GPS mouse for high quality GPS reception. It optionally comes with a separate telemetry unit that can handle passing the data over the cellular network. It, has now been succedded by the next generation of RaceCapture/Pro, MK2.

Toolchain Setup

Do the following to setup the MK1 toolchain

• Download the official MK1 toolchain
• Extract the tarball to a directory of your choice
• Add the 'bin' directory from within the 'gnuarm-4.0.2' directory to your system PATH.

Compiling LUA for MK1

Before compiling the firmware you must compile the LUA library for MK1. Do the following from the root of the project

• cd lib_lua/src/
• make PLAT=stm32 generic

Compiling MK1 Firmware

• run make PLAT=sam7x from the root directory of the RCP firmware project.

Flashing

The output from the compilation should create a main.elf file. The flashing utility can be found in SAM7s_base/installer.

Flashing Mode

Before you can flash the firmware you MUST put the MK1 device into flashing mode. Do the following:

• Ensure your MK1 is powered down.
• Hold down the button on RaceCapture/Pro
• Plug the MK1 unit into USB and release the button. You should see 3 green LEDs light up.

Flashing in Linux

Perform the following steps from the root level of the project:

• Put the MK1 into programming mode by holding down the button while applying power.
• sudo SAM7s_base/installer/flasher main.elf

MK2

MK2 is the second generation RaceCapture/Pro unit. Like its successor it has many of the same features that were originally loved, all of which have been improved upon. It also has some new features that were unavailable in the original MK1. MK2 supports sampling rates of up to 1 Kilo Hertz per channel (a 10x improvement from MK1) and a GPS unit that can sample up to 50Hz (a 5x improvement from MK1). It also includes a betteriInertial unit, an upgraded processor (STM32 base), more RAM (for better LUA support) and an integrated cellular device (optinal). The GPS unit is also integrated into this unit, allowing for a thinner wire and adjustable antenna (for those needing higher signal gain in wooded areas).

MK2 Toolchain Setup

Do the following to setup the MK2 toolchain:

• Download the official MK2 toolchain
• Extract the tarball to a directory of your choice
• Add the 'bin' directory from within the newly extracted directory to your system PATH.
• Install pip (the Python package manager)
• Run sudo pip install crcmod https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/asl-firmware/vagrant_setup/asl_f4_loader-0.0.6.tgz to install the asl_f4_loader package. This does post-processing on MK2 firmware and provides a firmware loading utility.

Compiling LUA library for MK2

Before compiling the firmware you must compile the LUA library for MK2. Do the following from the root of the project

• cd lib_lua/src/
• make PLAT=stm32 generic

Compiling MK2 Firmware

From the root of the project do the following:

• cd stm32_base
• make PLAT=stm32

Test

The Test platform is used to validate and stress test our firmware code. While not a real platform per se, its easier to treat it this way. The test platform will work natively with Linux and OSX (>10.10).

Toolchain Setup of Test

Linux

• Install the 64bit clang packages for your system
• Install the 64bit GCC packages for your system (need ld)
• Install libstdc++-static and libstdc++-devel for linking in test applications.
• Install the 64bit libcppunit library and its header and devel packages
• Install glibc-devel and glibc-headers

OSX

• Install the OSX clang compiler. This is typically done by installing command line tools from XCode.
• Use brew to install libcppunit by executing the following: brew install cppunit

Compiling Test Applications

From the root of the project do the following:

• cd test
• make

Running the Unit Tests

From the root of the project do the following:

• test/rcptest