Introduction

Thanks to E14, I received a RASynBoard dev kit as a part of Road-test. For a small product, this kit has so many features that cannot be covered in a single blog. So, I have decided to split the content into two blogs, each focusing on different way to test Keyword spotting application that is preloaded in the kit.

In this blog we will briefly go through a checklist of materials needed, out of box experience as well as dos and don’ts. While the official guide provides a detailed description, it is not a consolidated guide and information is spread across multiple files. This is by no means a definitive guide, rather a reference to avoid common mistakes and let you focus on the development.

Prerequisites

While the below list of items is needed for testing the RASynBoard kit, not all of them are mandatory. To follow this particular blog, only a system with HyperTerminal (Tera term or H-term) and a USB C cable is enough.

Hardware requirement

1. RASynBoard Development board
2. USB A/C to USB C cable
3. TTL to UART converter module
4. MicroSD card with few MB space, preferably in fat32 format.
5. Rechargeable battery (Optional)
6. Tweezer (Optional)

Software Requirement

1. E2 Studio application
2. Renesas Flash Programmer
3. Edge Impulse Cli
4. Python

Additional requirements

1. Edge impulse trial account.
2. Avnet IoT Connect trial account.

Testing keyword spotting feature

1. Connect the USB C cable to the core board and open your preferred HyperTerminal software. Make sure the baud rate is set to 115200.
2. There are two tiny buttons present on top right corners of the board, the one of left is reset while the one on right is user button.
3. The board comes preloaded with a keyword spotting application that requires no configuration from user to run.
4. Keep the board closer to you, press the user button and say either of the below commands.
   1. Up
   2. Down
   3. Near
   4. Back
   5. Ok syntiant!
   6. Down (pause for few seconds) Down.
5. 
6. You will see some text appear on terminal as soon as the board finds a match, could be my accent “Ok syntiant” inference result does not work most of the time for me. You can try speaking the keywords with a different speed and accent to check whether it is being recognized.
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8. The last command is special one, it will out the board in sleep mode. Even then it will listen for voice invocation, on finding a suitable inference match it will wake up again.
9. 

Dos and Don’ts

1. As the kit has two USB C type ports, you might be tempted to use two cables – Don’t. Use only one cable as one port is meant for serial port as another for flashing the firmware to Renesas Controller.
2. A separate SD card reader can be used to transfer the config and syntiant files to MicroSD card. While the content of MicroSD is exposed to your system along with serial port, there is a chance your MicroSD can be write locked if some disturbances cause USB connected to disconnect. So don’t try to copy content to SD card when it is exposed via USB connection.
3. There is a chance your RASynBoard may be stuck in file write state (Green Color LED for visual cue). Do not try to remove your SD card directly, there is a chance it will result in write lock. Reset the board and it will be back to normal.
4. If you have multiple tuned images from same project, just rename the images by appending with version name manually so that you always reuse it later.
5. The push buttons on the board are placed close to each other in a narrow space, it will require a delicate handling. Use a tweezer to press it.
6. While main board can be programmed and used separately from the IO board, it is not a good idea to separate it from IO board often. The connecting pins are small in size and gets easily bent. They can be straightened by using a thin tweezer.

Conclusion

Thus, we have covered a how to connect and view the inference results using serial communication. In the next blog, we will see how to send the inference data wirelessly.