nRF9160: LTE Sensor Gateway on Thingy:91

Question

I am trying to fun the LTE Sensor Gateway on the Thingy:91. 
 
 The boards are missing from zephyr so I copied nrf52840_pca20035 and nrf9160_pca20035 from ncs
rf\boards\arm. 
 
 When running samples/bluetooth/hci_uart. 
 The BLE and UART don't seem to be configured correctly. I get "warning: BT_CTLR_DTM_HCI" and "warning: BT_CTLR_ASSERT_HANDLER". 
 
 I created ncs\zephyr\samples\bluetooth\hci_uart
rf52840_pca20035.overlay based on https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/51693/hci_uart-on-thingy-91 
 This still doesn't work. 
 
 Adding the lines below to nfr52840_pca20035\Kconfig.defconfig seem to fix the BLE issues? UART is not working so, I don't know if it is working. 
 config BT_CTLR default BT

When running samples/nrf9160/lte_ble_gateway I get errors "warning: UART_2_NRF_UARTE" and "warning: UART_2_NRF_FLOW_CONTROL" 
 I see that nrf9160_pca20035ns.overlay is missing from the folder but I am not sure how to modify it. There is no status light configured. 
 
 Help?

Sigurd · Accepted Answer

UPDATE for NCS v1.1.0 : 
 As promised, here are the updated patch files for NCS v1.1.0: 
 lte_gateway_thingy91_v1.1.0_R2.zip 
 
 New in these patch files, compared to the last patch, is added support for logging over UART. So now you can use LTE link monitor with the lte_ble_gateway sample on Thingy:91, both for AT-commands and logging. This was done by merging the hci_uart sample with the usb_uart_bridge sample, into a new sample called hci_uart_with_usb_uart_bridge. Select PCA20035 in the LTE link monitor for this. 
 List over new and modified files in the patch: 
 In the nrf repo, the following files are new or modified:

 new file: boards/arm/nrf52840_pca20035/CMakeLists.txt
 modified: boards/arm/nrf52840_pca20035/Kconfig
 modified: boards/arm/nrf52840_pca20035/Kconfig.defconfig
 new file: boards/arm/nrf52840_pca20035/board.c
 modified: boards/arm/nrf52840_pca20035/nrf52840_pca20035.dts
 modified: boards/arm/nrf52840_pca20035/nrf52840_pca20035_defconfig
 modified: boards/arm/nrf9160_pca20035/CMakeLists.txt
 modified: boards/arm/nrf9160_pca20035/Kconfig
 new file: boards/arm/nrf9160_pca20035/nrf52840_reset.c
 modified: samples/nrf9160/lte_ble_gateway/CMakeLists.txt
 modified: samples/nrf9160/lte_ble_gateway/child_secure_partition_manager.conf
 new file: samples/nrf9160/lte_ble_gateway/nrf9160_pca20035ns.overlay
 modified: samples/nrf9160/lte_ble_gateway/prj.conf
 new file: samples/nrf9160/spm/nrf9160_pca20035.overlay
 
In zephyr repo, the following files are new:
 new file: samples/bluetooth/hci_uart_with_usb_uart_bridge/CMakeLists.txt
 new file: samples/bluetooth/hci_uart_with_usb_uart_bridge/nrf52840_pca20035.conf
 new file: samples/bluetooth/hci_uart_with_usb_uart_bridge/nrf52840_pca20035.overlay
 new file: samples/bluetooth/hci_uart_with_usb_uart_bridge/src/main.c 
 Make sure that you are on the v1.1.0 tag when applying the patch with git apply. If you are for some reason not able to apply the patch, then I recommend manually changing the files shown in the patch. 
 
 Also make sure to update the modem firmware on the nRF9160 to v1.1.0 (download from here ) 
 By the default, the GPS simulator is used in the lte_ble_gateway sample. If you are planning to use the real GPS, it's recommend to update to bsdlib v0.5.1 (make this change , and run west update) 
 Note that the COM-port is re-enumerated if the nRF9160 resets the nRF52840. 
 It's also recommend to add your Thingy:91 to nRFCloud before testing the lte_ble_gateway. 
 The lte_ble_gateway will send data to the cloud when the orientation of Thingy:52 gets flipped(Orientation: 3). If you want to send the data on e.g. button-push also, you can add this code to the bottom of gps_trigger_handler() 
 if(has_changed)
	{
 alarm();
	} 
 EDIT: Replaced "lte_gateway_thingy91_v1.1.0.zip" with a new version. The power_thread() in hci_uart_with_usb_uart_bridge was removed, so that the sample also works when the USB cable is detached from the Thingy91. 
 BR, 
 Sigurd

Sigurd · Answer

Hi, 
 I got the automatic reset-line to work. I got the Thingy:91 to connect to a Thingy:52 over BLE, and when I flipped the Thingy:52, the orientation got posted to nRFCloud. Might be better ways to do it, but at least it works. Note that I have not tested it very thoroughly, so might potentially be some minor bugs present. 
 I tested this on nrf(fw-nrfconnect-zephyr) master, hash d4a23f96221fce9bff846a2979d304c0130d6b74 
 Here are git diffs, and pre-compiled hex: 
 lte_ble_gateway_thingy91.zip 
 EDIT: 
 Minor bug-fix: for samples/nrf9160/spm/nrf9160_pca20035.overlay, and samples/nrf9160/lte_ble_gateway/nrf9160_pca20035ns.overlay , the rts-pin should be set to 0xFFFFFFFF , not 0xFF

Sigurd · Answer

Cody said: This is with one caveat - I have to have the Thingy91 plugged in to my computer via USB. It appears that if I unplug the USB cable from the Thingy91 and attempt to reboot the device, it will fail. 
 You are correct. In the original usb_uart_bridge sample, the nRF52840 is just put into system OFF sleep mode when there is no USB connected. But in our use-case with the LTE gateway, we need the nRF52840 powered on for the BLE HCI. 
 Should be a simple fix for this, in hci_uart_with_usb_uart_bridge, modify the function power_thread() in main.c to look someting like this: 
 void power_thread(void)
{
	while (1) {
 if (!nrf_power_usbregstatus_vbusdet_get()) {
 //nrf_power_system_off
 k_sleep(100);
 }
 k_sleep(100);
	}
} 
 I have not tested this, but alternatively we could perhaps just remove the power thread functionality completely, if the nRF52840 is on all the time anyways. 
 I hope this helps. Let me know how it goes.

nRF9160: LTE Sensor Gateway on Thingy:91

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