N5 Starter Kit SDK Version 2.0 and a New ANT Debugging Tool
N5 Starter Kit SDK Version 2.0 and a New ANT Debugging Tool
Dec 15, 2014
A new version of the N5 Starter Kit SDK has been released and is available for download. This update contains new reference designs for the nRF51422 including:
ANT Background Scanning Demo
Shows how to setup and use background scanning.
ANT Relay Demo
Demonstrates how to relay a message across multiple nodes by daisy chaining several devices together.
ANT Auto Shared Channel Demo
Shows how a shared channel network can be implemented using a master device and multiple slaves. This demo implements a handshaking mechanism to demonstrate how slave devices may be added and removed dynamically to and from the network.
ANT Bootloader/DFU Demo
Demonstrates how Over-the-Air (OTA) Device Firmware Updates (DFU) can be performed to wirelessly update the application, bootloader or SoftDevice.
ANT Debug Demo
Shows a sample implementation of debug messages which may be used to transmit useful information for debugging an application over ANT. It transmits the value stored in the device’s GPIO register, the state of the buttons on device, and some information about the health of the ANT channel.
Refer to the N5 Starter Kit SDK User’s Manual for more information.
A new debugging tool, ObservANT, is also available for download.
ObservANT is a PC application which facilitates the debugging of applications wirelessly over ANT.
Often it is difficult to debug embedded applications in place. For example, it may be inconvenient or impossible to attach debug wires to devices housed in restrictive enclosures, devices which have no debug pins exposed, or devices which are mounted in an inconvenient location such as a bicycle wheel or running shoe. A solution to this problem is to open an ANT channel for debugging and transmit the relevant information wirelessly. By formatting the debug information into debug messages, as defined in the ObservANT User Guide, ObservANT can display and log the data in a convenient way.
The information being transmitted is up to the user, but may include things like register values, counter variables, current state of a state machine, ANT channel reception statistics, etc. ObservANT many be configured to display data as hex values, unsigned numbers, signed numbers or enumerations to match the type of information being sent by the device. Furthermore, ObservANT may send messages back to the device to request specific debug information.
For more information see the ObservANT User's Guide and the previously mentioned ANT Debug Demo, which provides a sample implementation of debug messaging for use with ObservANT.
