BringUp & Qualification

This chapter introduces the EVerest BringUp & Qualification process.

This process is all about bringing up the individual hardware components step by step by verifying their functionality and performance in isolated test cases. In the end, the whole charger will be brought to life and we’ll hit the most important milestone: A first complete charging session of a real car.

Tip

EVerest HW Drivers should be available for all required hardware components and a prototype hardware should be in place.

Many sections are written like a checklist that you can follow step by step.

Before we start, we recommend to set up the following development environment:

  • ☐ Working cross compiler on your PC to do fast updates of your code (e.g. with rsync to the target). On Yocto, use bitbake -c populate_sdk my-image to generate the SDK.

  • ☐ SSH to the target

  • ☐ Ensure the hardware interfaces to all components are up and running

  • ☐ Include “tmux” in your image

  • ☐ Recommended: Unicode support should work on the target terminal

BringUp modules

The following chapters use EVerest’s BringUp helper modules.

These modules allow manual control of one or several hardware drivers. We will use them to verify correct functionality and timing of all components individually before assembling the complete configuration file.

The BringUp modules should be included in the system image initially, but later in production they should not be installed.

To get familiar with this method, you can use a pure SIL version on your development PC. This step is optional. From the build folder of BaseCamp, start the following run script:

./dist/etc/everest/run_tmux_helper.sh ../config/bringup/config-bringup-isolation-monitor-sil.yaml ./dist

The first parameter specifies the config file to load, the second parameter points to the EVerest installation to use.

Later, on the embedded target, it can be used like this:

/etc/everest/run_tmux_helper.sh /etc/everest/bringup/myconf.yaml /usr

The second argument now points to the EVerest version installed in the base Yocto system. If you use a cross-compiled development version installed under /var/everest, simply set the second argument to /var/everest.

You should see a split-screen setup (using tmux) similar to this:

Bring-Up Split-Screen

In the left pane, EVerest is running all modules except for the two BringUp modules. They are running in their own shell. Mouse support should be working and you can click on the buttons.

E.g., click on “Start Measurements” and check that new isolation measurements are coming in roughly every second.

To exit the tmux session, press Ctrl+B and then d. Normally with tmux, this puts the session running into the background but it keeps running. The run_tmux_helper.sh script will take care of ending the session properly here and cleaning up.

Have a look at the config file that it is using (config/bringup/config-bringup-isolation-monitor-sil.yaml):

active_modules:
 bsp_ui:
   standalone: true
   module: BUIsolationMonitor
   connections:
     imd:
       - implementation_id: main
         module_id: iso_monitor
 powersupply_ui:
   connections:
     psu:
       - implementation_id: main
         module_id: powersupply
   module: BUPowerSupplyDC
   standalone: true
 iso_monitor:
   module: IMDSimulator
 powersupply:
   module: DCSupplySimulator

The configuration file loads the two BringUp modules you saw on the right as well as the two driver modules for isolation monitor and DC power supply. Since it is a SIL config, both hardware drivers are simulated only.

Tip

Have a look at the attribute “standalone: true” in both BringUp modules. This tells the manager and the tmux script that these two modules should be run in a separate tmux window.

For your hardware, you will need to create configuration files that use the real hardware instead of the simulated ones. There are example files for each of the following steps - just adapt them to your needs.

Now, let’s use this on real hardware.

Warning

During the hardware bring-up, you will switch on high voltages that can cause severe injury including death. It must only be done by trained personnel. Make sure to follow all necessary safety procedures.

The following chapters will guide you through the individual steps of bringing up the hardware components one by one.

Authors: Cornelius Claussen