Morse Micro IoT Zephyr Module (Alpha Port)

Overview

This alpha module includes drivers and sample applications to add Morse Micro HaLow Wi-Fi to LTS version 3.7 of the Zephyr RTOS Project. The module is based on the 2.6.4 release of the MM-IoT-SDK

What is an Alpha Port

Morse Micro will provide Alpha ports of its software for some platforms. These ports are not part of the standard test and development cycle for a software release and may be incomplete in the set of supported features. They intend to provide a starting point for integrating Morse Micro software to projects based on these platforms.

How to use this Zephyr Module

Follow the Zephyr Getting Started Guide

Before using this module, please ensure you have followed the Zephyr Getting Started Guide.

Modify your project's west manifest

Following the Zephyr Getting Started Guide you should be in the root directory of your west workspace, eg ~/zephyrproject. Next add the Morse Micro repository and module to zephyr/west.yml:

manifest:
  remotes:
    # <your other remotes>
    - name: morsemicro
      url-base: https://github.com/MorseMicro

  projects:
    # <your other projects>
    - name: morsemicro
      path: modules/lib/morsemicro
      revision: main
      repo-path: mm-iot-zephyr
      remote: morsemicro

Update west's modules:

west update

Fetch the required blobs:

west blobs fetch morsemicro

Build and Run Porting Assistant Test Application

Build and execute porting_assistant

west build -p auto -b [board] [--shield morse_mmech08] modules/lib/morsemicro/samples/porting_assistant
west flash

If using a Morse Micro MMECH08 hat, add the shield parameter to the build command. The porting assistant example application compilation will fail if a node with compatible = "morse,spi" is not found in the compiled device tree.

Build and Run HaLow Client Application

Build and execute halow_client

west build -p auto -b [board] [--shield morse_mmech08] modules/lib/morsemicro/samples/halow_client
west flash

This application will boot the MM6108 and enable device connectivity via the Zephyr command line.

To scan for a network, run

wifi scan

To connect to a network run

wifi connect -s "<ssid>" -p "<key>" -k 3

Known Issues

Throughput

Throughput measured on some boards is quite poor. For example, a nucleo_u575zi_q board may only see ~3.5 Mbps UDP upload.

Device Power Management

Host device power management hooks are not implemented in the Morse Micro Wi-Fi driver for Zephyr.

Incomplete Information in Status

The band information in the Zephyr Wi-Fi shell will show as UNKNOWN for Morse Micro HaLow interfaces.

FAQ

How do I improve performance?

The Morse Micro HaLow Wi-Fi embedded software stack carries out a mix of short and long transactions over SPI. Unfortunately when paired with the SPI drivers for many platforms included in Zephyr, the overhead to prepare each transaction substantially reduces performance of the link.

Zephyr has recently released the RTIO subsystem which looks promising for improving this performance. Future development will focus on an RTIO compatible driver.

Where do I go for support?

Feel free to join the Morse Micro developer community at https://community.morsemicro.com. While this is an Alpha port, we are happy to discuss issues and assist with further development.