Bench Talk

(Source: TierneyMJ/Shutterstock.com)

Texas Instruments LAUNCHXL-CC26X2R1 LaunchPad^™ Development Kit

The Texas Instruments LAUNCHXL-CC26X2R1 LaunchPad^™ Development Kit supports the development of applications using Bluetooth^® Low Energy (BLE) and IEEE 802.15.4 based protocols including Thread, ZigBee^® , and TI 15.4. The board features the TI CC2652R wireless microcontroller—a 32-bit Arm^® Cortex^®-M4F processor running at 48MHz with 352KB flash and 80KB SRAM—along with a full complement of peripherals such as I²C, SPI, UART, digital and analog input/output, advanced cryptography accelerators, and a Sensor Controller Engine (SCE). The SCE is a second programmable processor core that is ideal for ultra low-power sensor reading and data processing applications. It runs independently from the main Cortex-M4F and handles sensor polling using just a few microamps of average current. The LaunchPad board features an integrated PCB antenna for 2.4GHz, on-board XDS110 JTAG emulation tool for flashing and debugging firmware, two user buttons, two user LEDs, 8 Mbit serial flash memory, access to all GPIO pins, and connectors for BoosterPack add-on boards. Power is provided through USB, which also supports programming and debugging as well as serial UART connectivity to a host computer.

Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio (CCS) Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

The Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio (CCS) Integrated Development Environment (IDE) supports software development for the LaunchPad board. The CCS environment includes a compiler, debugger, and linker along with configurable software components and support packages for the LaunchPad and other TI boards and components. Software Development Kits (SDKs), example programs, and API documentation support the development of new applications involving input/output, signal and data processing, and wireless communications. CCS works with the on-board debugger built into LaunchPad development boards for debugging and troubleshooting application code.

Medium One IoT Platform

The Medium One IoT Platform cloud-based platform helps early-stage developers prototype their IoT project or connect their existing hardware to the cloud. It offers an IoT Data Intelligence platform enabling customers to quickly build IoT applications with less effort. Programmable workflows allow you to quickly build processing logic without having to create your own complex software stack. A graphical workflow builder and run-time engine let you process IoT data as it arrives and route or transform it as needed for your application. Workflow library modules are available for data analytics, charting, geolocation, weather data, MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT), SMS text messaging, and integration with Twitter, Salesforce, and Zendesk. You can create custom workflow modules using snippets of Python code. The web-based Workflow Studio, which provides a drag-and-drop visual programming environment, designs and builds end-to-end workflows. Workflow versioning and debugging tools support the development, test, and deployment lifecycle. Communications between IoT devices and the Medium One cloud are done through REST APIs or MQTT protocol. Configurable dashboards allow you to visualize application data and view real-time data in a variety of formats. Dashboard widgets are included for tabular data, charts, geopoint maps, gauges, and user inputs. Medium One’s iOS and Android apps allow you to build simple mobile app dashboards that can communicate with your devices through the platform.

Using Your Own LaunchPad Development Kit

To use your own LaunchPad Development Kit with the Medium One IoT Platform, check out our step-by-step Connecting TI LAUNCHXL-CC26X2R1 to the Cloud article that walks you through the entire process of:

• Setting up the hardware and development tools
• Installing and running the necessary software components
• Building the code and downloading it to the board
• Configuring the board’s cloud-connection parameters
• Running the board to generate real-time sensor measurements that are sent to the cloud

In this article, we also show you how to observe the published data on a real-time dashboard created in the Medium One environment. A set of next steps gives suggestions for how to extend and adapt the application for different IoT prototyping scenarios or to learn more.