SwarmIT

SwarmIT provides a embedded C port for nRF53 as well as Python based services to easily build and deploy a robotic swarm infrastructure testbed. ARM TrustZone is used to create a sandboxed user environment on each device under test, without requiring a control co-processor attached to it.

swarmit.mp4

Features

• Experiment management: start, stop, monitor and status check
• Deploy a custom firmware on all or on a subset of robots of a swarm testbed
• Resilient robot state: even when crashed by buggy user code, the robot can be reprogrammed remotely and wirelessly

Usage

Embedded C code

SwarmIT embedded C code can be built using Segger Embedded Studio (SES).

To provision a device, follow the following steps:

1. open netcore.emProject and bootloader.emProject in SES
2. build and load the netcore application on the nRF53 network core,
3. build and load the bootloader application on the nRF53 application core.

The device is now ready.

Gateway

The communication between the computer and the swarm devices is performed via a gateway board connected via USB to the computer. The gateway board is a Nordic nRF52840DK.

The firmware to run on the gateway can also be compiled and flash using SES. The SES project to open is located at gateway.emProject.

After flashing the gateway firmware, LED1 on the DK should blink fast during 1s.

Python CLI script

The Python CLI script provides commands for flashing, starting and stopping user code on the device, as well as monitoring and checking the status of devices in the swarm.

The Python CLI script connects via a virtual COM port to the gateway connected to the computer.

The Python CLI script is available on PyPI. Install it using:

pip install swarmit

Default usage:

Usage: swarmit [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

Options:
  --version               Show the version and exit.
  -p, --port TEXT         Serial port to use to send the bitstream to the
                          gateway. Default: /dev/ttyACM0.
  -b, --baudrate INTEGER  Serial port baudrate. Default: 1000000.
  -e, --edge              Use MQTT adapter to communicate with an edge
                          gateway.
  -d, --devices TEXT      Subset list of devices to interact with, separated
                          with ,
  -h, --help              Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  flash    Flash a firmware to the robots.
  message  Send a custom text message to the robots.
  monitor  Monitor running applications.
  reset    Reset robots locations.
  start    Start the user application.
  status   Print current status of the robots.
  stop     Stop the user application.