Upgrading the firmware

[Kalin Nakov]

There is a firmware image inside the SDK directory in the firmware/vpi directory. As new SDK versions appear, there will be new firmware images with bugfixes and enhancements.

The firmware upgrade is done through the serial port connection of the Vehicle Pi. After you have located the [image-name].hex file in the SDK directory, you can start upgrading it. The SDK provides a method for upgrading called VehiclePiProtocolParser.requestUpgrade(). There is a demo program called vehiclepi-serial-runnable.jar that can be used to upgrade the firmware. Here are the details how to upgrade:

From inside the Vehicle Pi:

Warning: you may need to power on the Raspberry Pi with a USB cable during the upgrade in some of the older revisions of the firmware/hardware. Otherwise the Vehicle Pi will reset the Raspberry Pi before the upgrade has started.

Warning: if you have an old version of the firmware that works on 115 200 bps, please specify -B 115200 instead of -B 500000. After the Vehicle Pi upgrades, the software will start and run on 500000 kbps so that the connection needs to be restarted.

java -jar vehicle-serial-runnable.jar -C /dev/ttyAMA0 -T vehiclepi -F [PATH-TO-SDK]/sdk/firmware/vpi/vpi-2c6a424-41.hex -B 500000

Requesting upgrade...

Upgrade process started

Old firmware erasing started

Old firmware erasing completed

Uploading line 0 out of 8261 [:020000040000fa]

...

Warning: In some cases the upgrade process may "freeze" for 10 seconds at this line. Wait for 10 seconds to pass and the upgrade process will resume.

Uploading line 1278 out of 8261 [:106d90006a00370055c7b300854f5200c800320063]

Uploading line 1279 out of 8261 [:106da000e3c24200854f520068003200e5c2520043]

Uploading line 1280 out of 8261 [:106db000854f5200ae003a006b0037000c46e800e9]

Uploading line 1281 out of 8261 [:106dc000c0ff3700ecef9f009bef9f00eab79f00ea]

...

The upgrade process takes few minutes. After the upgrade the Vehicle Pi boots automatically.

Uploading line 8255 out of 8261 [:020000040005f5]

Uploading line 8256 out of 8261 [:0457f8004d0b000055]

Uploading line 8257 out of 8261 [:020000040000fa]

Uploading line 8258 out of 8261 [:020000040005f5]

Uploading line 8259 out of 8261 [:0457fc006d3f0000fd]

Uploading line 8260 out of 8261 [:00000001FF]

Starting firmware...

From Windows using the USB cable or the upcoming USB hardware developmnent kit (the COM port may vary between different computers):

java -jar vehicle-serial-runnable.jar -C COM3 -T vehiclepi -F [PATH-TO-SDK]/sdk/firmware/vpi/vpi-2c6a424-41.hex -B 500000