va416xx-rs/flashloader/README.md

VA416xx Flashloader Application

This flashloader shows a minimal example for a self-updatable Rust software which exposes a simple PUS (CCSDS) interface to update the software. It also provides a Python application called the image-loader.py which can be used to upload compiled images to the flashloader application to write them to the NVM.

Please note that the both the application and the image loader are tailored towards usage with the bootloader provided by this repository.

The software can quickly be adapted to interface with a real primary on-board software instead of the Python script provided here to upload images because it uses a low-level CCSDS based packet interface.

Using the Python image loader

It is recommended to run the script in a dedicated virtual environment. For example, on UNIX systems you can use python3 -m venv venv and then source venv/bin/activate to create and activate a virtual environment.

After that, you can use

pip install -r requirements.txt

to install all required dependencies.

After that, it is recommended to use ./image-load.py -h to get an overview of some options. The flash loader uses the UART0 interface of the VA416xx board to perform CCSDS based communication. The Python image loader application will search for a file named loader.toml and use the serial_port key to determine the serial port to use for serial communication.

Examples

You can use

./image-loader.py -p

to send a ping an verify the connection.

You can use

cd flashloader/slot-a-blinky
cargo build --release
cd ../..
./image-loader.py -t a ./slot-a-blinky/target/thumbv7em-none-eabihf/release/slot-a-blinky

to build the slot A sample application and upload it to a running flash loader application to write it to slot A.

You can use

./image-loader.py -c -t a

to corrupt the image A and test that it switches to image B after a failed CRC check instead.