Antmicro and Zephyr present Renode at ELC Europe 2017

At this year’s Embedded Linux Conference Europe hosted by the Linux Foundation, Antmicro will be proudly presenting Renode and its official collaboration with the Zephyr Project.

Renode is an open source framework developed by Antmicro which can be used to run multi-node virtual setups with real embedded software like the Zephyr RTOS for development, debug and interoperability testing.

The event is due to take place in Prague, October 23rd to 25th, 2017. Meet Antmicro and take part in a live demonstration of Renode at Zephyr’s booth.

Emulation demo at ELC Europe 2017

At ELC Europe, Antmicro’s demo of Renode will show many different aspects of the framework, including how to integrate real world tools and host networking with a wireless multi-node setup. We will also explain how to enhance your development workflow and do zero-effort interoperability testing.

Learn how using features such as event recording or emulation state saving makes it easy to share work your fellow team members. Those unique features, combined with integration with popular tools as well as the complete determinism of execution offered by Renode allows to easily trace down bugs and fix them.

Some examples include using:

• GDB to inspect the code execution while keeping your entire multi-node network paused,
• Wireshark for analyzing the emulated network traffic where you also have control of the wireless medium parameters themselves,
• Robot scripts to automate not only compilation but also execution of embedded software tests in a CI environment.

The main Zephyr-based setup presented at the event will consist of three emulated nodes connected to a 802.15.4 wireless network and interacting with the host system.

The demo mimics how a typical 6LoWPAN network might look like, allowing seamless integration between larger, Linux-based hosts and small, typically battery-operated wireless nodes running an RTOS.

Featuring wireless nodes based on two architectures - x86 and ARM, and running two different RTOS - Zephyr and Contiki, the demo also hints at how easy it is to perform interoperability testing with Renode.

For some more technical details, all but one of the emulated nodes are x86-based Intel Quark C1000 with TI CC2520 radio modules, running Zephyr and exposing their resources over CoAP. The remaining node is a TI CC2538, a Cortex-M SoC with integrated radio running Contiki - acting as a SLIP radio connected via a virtual UART to the host machine.

Through a specific setup of the virtual node locations and wireless radio medium parameters, they form a 6LoWPAN mesh network without direct communication between some of the nodes, so that the RPL routing protocol can be demonstrated.

The host will be running a native border router (which acts as a RPL root for the emulated network) and an in-browser CoAP client (the Firefox Copper plugin), allowing easy access to CoAP resources on the Quark nodes.

Renode as one of official development tools for Zephyr RTOS

Renode has recently become one of Zephyr’s recommended developer tools, underlining the cooperation between both projects - see the description of Renode on Zephyr’s website.

Antmicro and its customers have already been successfully using Renode for developing and testing Zephyr RTOS ports and applications, and effort is currently under way to expand Renode’s use to test Zephyr’s networking stack itself in collaboration with the Zephyr project.

Schedule a presentation at ELC Europe

If you would like to schedule an exclusive presentation of Renode, please contact Michael Gielda, our Business Development Manager, at contact@antmicro.com.

About Zephyr

The Zephyr™ Project is a scalable real-time operating system (RTOS) supporting multiple hardware architectures, optimized for resource constrained devices, and built with security in mind. This Linux Foundation hosted project embraces open source development values and governance on its mission to unite leaders from across the industry to produce a best-in-breed solution.

About Renode

Renode™ is an open source framework developed by Antmicro that lets you develop, debug and test IoT devices and systems reliably, scalably and effectively. It enables running unmodified software for embedded devices on a PC for development and testing of large wireless or wired networks without the need for physical hardware. The repeatability, control and scalability offered by Renode drastically improves the development experience especially for multi-node systems and protocols and enables a new Continuous Integration (CI) driven workflow. For more information, visit http://renode.io/.