A modular framework for data logging, remote data acquisition and low power wireless mesh networks.

The name represents a seed found in a plum fruit - the core of the plum. Although not used in this manner it sounds sufficiently good to be used as a name for a totally unrelated project.

plumCore is a C framework using the microkernel/services pattern. FreeRTOS scheduler is used as the microkernel providing task scheduling and a basic IPC. All the rest is implemented as modular services. A plumCore service provides interfaces used by other services. Interface dependencies are either discovered in runtime (service locator pattern) or injected (dependency injection). Even the service locator is implemented as a service. Most of the code looks like and behaves in an OOP manner. From the user standpoint, a tree-structured CLI (command line interface) is available to configure the device.

plumCore is not meant to be run on dataloggers powered by primary batteries lasting for years. It is not very-low-power friendly as it is not its design goal. It is intended to be used in medium power applications with power requiremens in the tens to hundreds of milliwats range where the actual power consumption of the MCU itself doesn't play a significant role. This is the case of various remotely operated measurement/DAQ systems with optional on-site data processing. The main target application during the development are modular devices for the natWatch project, most of them are powered by solar energy.

The project started a few years ago as a framework for wireless mesh network (MANET) routers. The development stalled a bit and now it is being refactored and enhanced to be actually usable for remote data logging and data acquisition.

The current development release source code is available on GitHub https://github.com/iqyx/plumcore/tree/develop

You will need a Linux machine and some additional software to build the sources:

•  gcc-arm-none-eabi >= 6, from https://developer.arm.com/-/media/Files/downloads/gnu-rm/6-2017q2/gcc-arm-none-eabi-6-2017-q2-update-linux.tar.bz2
• protoc >= 3.4.0, from https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases/download/v3.4.0/protoc-3.4.0-linux-x86_64.zip
• protobuf-python >= 3.4.0, from https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases/download/v3.4.0/protobuf-python-3.4.0.tar.gz
• gitpython (pip install gitpython)
• pyyaml (pip install pyyaml)

After cloning the repository and selecting the required branch, edit config/default.yaml file and do:

  # Fetch all required libraries
  git submodule init
  git submodule update
  
  # Build the nanopb library using make
  cd lib/other/nanopb/generator/proto && make && cd ../../../../..
  
  # Build the libopencm3 library using make
  cd lib/libopencm3 && make && cd ../..
  
  scons proto
  scons
  scons program

If a selected port requires a bootloader, you have to program it first. Then use the bootloader or a SWD programmer to program the plumCore binary itself. The binary will be located in the bin/ directory.

The build output should look like:

$ scons
scons: Reading SConscript files ...
scons: done reading SConscript files.
scons: Building targets ...
Compiling services/stm32-watchdog/watchdog.o
Creating library services/stm32-watchdog/libstm32-watchdog.a
ranlib services/stm32-watchdog/libstm32-watchdog.a
Compiling services/stream-over-mqtt/stream_over_mqtt.o
Creating library services/stream-over-mqtt/libstream-over-mqtt.a
ranlib services/stream-over-mqtt/libstream-over-mqtt.a
...
...
Compiling services/interfaces/uxbdevice.o
Compiling services/interfaces/uxbslot.o
Compiling services/interfaces/plog/client.o
Compiling services/interfaces/plog/descriptor.o
Compiling services/interfaces/clock/descriptor.o
Linking bin/plumcore-plumpot-cellular-0.5.0-split-into-modules.6+2067d83.20180929.elf
Creating binary firmware bin/plumcore-plumpot-cellular-0.5.0-split-into-modules.6+2067d83.20180929.bin
Generating  new firmware signing key bin/test_key.key
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
32 bytes (32 B) copied, 0.000147496 s, 217 kB/s
Creating firmware image bin/plumcore-plumpot-cellular-0.5.0-split-into-modules.6+2067d83.20180929.fw
verified section at 0x08010000, data 0x08010008, len 176080 bytes
	firmware version section at 0x08010008, data 0x08010010, len 43 bytes
	hardware compatibility section at 0x0801003b, data 0x08010043, len 9 bytes
	dummy section at 0x0801004c, data 0x08010054, len 932 bytes
	firmware section at 0x080103f8, data 0x08010400, len 175064 bytes
verification section at 0x0803afd8, data 0x0803afe0, len 156 bytes
	sha512 hash section at 0x0803afe0, data 0x0803afe8, len 64 bytes
	ed25519 signature section at 0x0803b028, data 0x0803b030, len 64 bytes
	pubkey fingerprint section at 0x0803b070, data 0x0803b078, len 4 bytes
scons: done building targets.

Programming output:

$ scons program
scons: Reading SConscript files ...
scons: done reading SConscript files.
scons: Building targets ...
openocd -s /usr/share/openocd/scripts/ -f interface/stlink-v2-1.cfg -f target/stm32f4x_stlink.cfg -c "init" -c "reset init" -c "flash write_image erase bin/plumcore-plumpot-cellular-0.5.0-split-into-modules.6+2067d83.20180929.fw 0x08010000 bin" -c "reset" -c "shutdown"
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.10.0+dev-00313-gbae7605 (2018-03-01-21:55)
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
	http://openocd.org/doc/doxygen/bugs.html
WARNING: interface/stlink-v2-1.cfg is deprecated, please switch to interface/stlink.cfg
WARNING: target/stm32f4x_stlink.cfg is deprecated, please switch to target/stm32f4x.cfg
Info : auto-selecting first available session transport "hla_swd". To override use 'transport select <transport>'.
Info : The selected transport took over low-level target control. The results might differ compared to plain JTAG/SWD
adapter speed: 2000 kHz
adapter_nsrst_delay: 100
none separate
Info : Unable to match requested speed 2000 kHz, using 1800 kHz
Info : Unable to match requested speed 2000 kHz, using 1800 kHz
Info : clock speed 1800 kHz
Info : STLINK v2 JTAG v27 API v2 SWIM v15 VID 0x0483 PID 0x374B
Info : using stlink api v2
Info : Target voltage: 0.000000
Error: target voltage may be too low for reliable debugging
Info : stm32f4x.cpu: hardware has 6 breakpoints, 4 watchpoints
Info : Listening on port 3333 for gdb connections
Info : Unable to match requested speed 2000 kHz, using 1800 kHz
Info : Unable to match requested speed 2000 kHz, using 1800 kHz
adapter speed: 1800 kHz
target halted due to debug-request, current mode: Thread 
xPSR: 0x01000000 pc: 0x08006290 msp: 0x20010000
Info : Unable to match requested speed 8000 kHz, using 4000 kHz
Info : Unable to match requested speed 8000 kHz, using 4000 kHz
adapter speed: 4000 kHz
auto erase enabled
Info : device id = 0x10006431
Info : flash size = 512kbytes
wrote 196608 bytes from file bin/plumcore-plumpot-cellular-0.5.0-split-into-modules.6+2067d83.20180929.fw in 4.465176s (42.999 KiB/s)
Info : Unable to match requested speed 2000 kHz, using 1800 kHz
Info : Unable to match requested speed 2000 kHz, using 1800 kHz
adapter speed: 1800 kHz
shutdown command invoked
scons: done building targets.

Output on the serial console looks like: (including the uBLoad bootloader)

### uBLoad (umeshFw bootloader), plumpot-cellular platform
### version develop, 2b73024, 2016-04-26 13:29:14 +0200, build date 2017-08-29 11:32:25 CEST

INFO: clog initialized
INFO: led1: LED module initialized
INFO: spi_flash: flash id 00014014
INFO: spi_flash: flash detected Spansion S25FL208K, size 1048576 bytes
INFO: spi_flash: flash id 00014014
INFO: sffs: filesystem mounted successfully
INFO: sffs: sectors t=256 e=251 u=2 f=0 d=3 o=0, pages t=3840 e=3785 u=6 o=49
INFO: sffs: space total 983040 bytes, used 1536 bytes, free 981504 bytes
INFO: config: loading saved running configuration

Press [enter] to interrupt the boot process....................

INFO: fw_image: parsing firmware image...
INFO: fw_image: firmware vector table found at 0x08010400
INFO: fw_image: firmware structure check & parsing OK
INFO: ubload: jumping to user code
[] INFO: plocator: service initialized
[] INFO: rtc1: module RTC initialized
[] INFO: rtc1: current date/time is 2018-09-29T12:09:22Z
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: led_stat: LED module initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: prng: module PRNG-simple initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: profiler: FIFO time profiler initialized, queue length 100
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: spi2: module SPI bus initialized using default settings
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: spi2_flash1: SPI device initialized on bus spi2
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: flash1: flash detected Spansion S25FL208K, size 1048576 bytes
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: sffs: filesystem mounted successfully
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: sffs: sectors t=256 e=251 u=2 f=0 d=3 o=0, pages t=3840 e=3785 u=6 o=49
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: sffs: space total 983040 bytes, used 1536 bytes, free 981504 bytes
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: adc-stm32: ADC initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: gsm-quectel: initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: gsm1_usart: module USART initialized using default settings
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: gsm-quectel: starting
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: gsm-quectel: powering up
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: i2c-sensors: initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:22Z] INFO: puxb: module initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:23Z] INFO: puxb-discovery: module initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:23Z] INFO: watchdog: started, period = 20000ms, prio = 0
[2008-09-29T12:09:23Z] DEBUG: stream-mqtt: initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:23Z] INFO: system-clock: system clock timer started
[2008-09-29T12:09:23Z] INFO: stm32-rtc: RTC ready, skipping initialization
[2008-09-29T12:09:23Z] INFO: system: initializing services...
[2008-09-29T12:09:23Z] INFO: login1: module loginmgr initialized on interface 'console'
[2008-09-29T12:09:23Z] ERROR: gsm-quectel: module startup timeout

Press any key to activate this console.

[2008-09-29T12:09:27Z] INFO: sensor-over-can: module initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:27Z] INFO: sensor-over-can: module initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:27Z] INFO: sensor-over-can: module initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:27Z] INFO: sensor-over-can: module initialized
[2008-09-29T12:09:27Z] INFO: plog-router: plog message router started
[2008-09-29T12:09:27Z] INFO: plog-sensor: plog sensor upload service started
[2008-09-29T12:09:28Z] ERROR: gsm-quectel: no response from the modem
[2008-09-29T12:09:28Z] INFO: gsm-quectel: requesting stop
[2008-09-29T12:09:30Z] INFO: gsm-quectel: powering down
[2008-09-29T12:09:30Z] WARNING: gsm-quectel: module is already powered down
[2008-09-29T12:09:30Z] INFO: gsm-quectel: stopped