In continuation to Part-1 (Part-1: Getting started with FRDM-KW41Z [executing MKW41Z SMAC based Connectivity Test application]) of SMAC connectivity demo, we will see how to execute the demo application on hyperterminal.
Open a putty or tera term hyperterminal application and open a session to your FRDM-KW41ZFRDM-KW41Z COM port(in my case com port connected is to com44
Configure the terminal with these settings:
115200 baud rate
No parity
8 data bits
1 stop bit
Start the application by clicking the "Resume" button:
You can see the execution of this board
Click on stop button as shown below:
Now connect the board-2 and perform the same operation of executing the debugging activity so that the program is flashed to the second board (board-2).
The board-2 is connected to com77 port in this case
Begin our Test:
Plug in both the boards to USB port of your computer and open the device manager from your control panel, you can see there are two com ports connected as shown below (in my case it is com77 and com 44)
The application displays a logo screen and waits for user intervention. When the [ENTER] key is pressed, the application will show the main menu. If any other key is pressed, the logo screen is redisplayed with on-screen instructions.
After pressing enter button you can see SMAC Software Demo Application menu as shown below i.e Connectivity test interface main menu
According to the above figure, the following keyboard keys have these functions described below:
• ‘t’—brings up the configuration menu for the transmitter in both PER and Range tests.
• ‘r’—brings up the configuration menu for the receiver in both PER and Range tests.
• ‘q’ — increments the channel number. If you press this key when the current channel is 26, the channel number changes to 11.
• ‘w’ — decrements the channel number. If you press this key when the current channel is 11, the channel number changes to 26.
• ‘a’ — increments the output power value. If the output power is at its maximum and you press this key, the output power goes to its minimum (in this case 0x00).
• ‘s’ — decrements the output power value. If the output power is at its minimum and you press this key, the output power goes to its maximum (in this case 0x20). These values are not mapped directly to the dBm values. Instead, the output power value is written to the appropriate register.
See the appropriate reference manual to determine the relationship between the selected value and power in dBm.
• ‘n’ — increments the length of the payload. This value is used in both the PER TX and Transmission Control tests to build up the payload.
• ‘m’ — decrements the length of the payload. The incrementation and decrementation are performed in the [17, 116] interval. All overflows at one end set the value at the other end.
• ‘k’ — increments the CCA threshold for the Carrier Sense test. In this test, the CCA before TX algorithm is implemented at the application level, and the channel idle threshold is established using this parameter.
• ‘l’ — decrements the CCA threshold for the Carrier Sense test.
• ‘d’ — increments the crystal trim register value. This option can be used with the "continuous unmodulated transmission" test and a spectrum analyzer to calibrate the carrier frequency. At the beginning of each test the value is written both in the corresponding register and in the flash memory. At transceiver initialization, the most recent value written is read from the flash memory and applied.
• ‘f’ — decrements the crystal trim register value. If pressed when the value is 0, the new value will overflow to the maximum allowed.
To start any test, you can follow the on-screen instructions. We are going with Packet Error Rate test
Both of the board comes in Tx mode by default as shown below:
In packet error rate we are transmitting XX numbers of packet from transmit window and checking the same number of packets are been received in receive window, and if there is error in receiving packets it will give the error rate.
For this we need to configure one of the boards to be in TX and other to be in RX mode. Press button ‘r’ on one of the terminal to change in rx mode as shown below:
In my setup COM44 is configured as receiver terminal and COM77 as Transmit terminal as shown above
Now press ‘2’ on both terminals to run as “Packet Error Rate Test”
You can see different options on the RX board now press ‘space bar’ to start receiving packets i.e the terminal is in receiving mode and keep in listening for the packets on the channel
Now in TX terminal
Press ‘1’ here in transmit terminal to send 25 packets it will ask TX interval in milliseconds i have given 100ms. Now press enter to send packets
Now you can see the sending packets from transmit window and same thing is received in receive window i.e in COM44 port terminal both happens simultaneously as shown below:
You can see the packet index along with RSSI during RX and average RSSI of the PER
The Video output execution is shown in below video:
Happy Executing SMAC connectivity test on KW41Z (wireless MCU)... 