boards/sodaq-sara-aff: Initial support

[leandrolanzieri]

Contribution description

This PR adds the initial support for the SODAQ SARA AFF boards (R410M and N211).

The hardware includes:

• ublox SARA R4xx/N2xx NB-IoT module
• ublox SAM M8Q GPS module
• LSM303AGR accelerometer & magnetometer module
• Solar charge controller

Right now we don't have drivers for the on-board modules.

Testing procedure

Follow the instructions in the Flash the board section of the documentation to test this.

Issues/PRs references

None

[aabadie]

Nice one @leandrolanzieri ! Do you plan to work on the NB-IoT drivers ?

[leandrolanzieri]

Nice one @leandrolanzieri ! Do you plan to work on the NB-IoT drivers ?

@aabadie yes! I'm starting with some tests now and I plan to work on the driver afterwards.

[aabadie]

I don't have the hardware for testing but codewise it looks already good and configured things match the datasheet.
Just one comment regarding LED0, see below.

[smlng]

@aabadie is this good to go?

[aabadie]

is this good to go?

Not really, the first question of this #10435 (comment) is still not addressed and I haven't this hardware for testing. But I guess someone on your side can do the testing.

[leandrolanzieri]

Not really, the first question of this #10435 (comment) is still not addressed

Sorry, missed that. Now it's changed.

[PeterKietzmann]

I'll do some tests for the configured peripherals

[PeterKietzmann]

Besides one minor exception (commented inline) all tests went smooth.

• tests/shell
• tests/leds (with AUTO_INIT_LED0 defined)
• tests/periph_gpio (verified with LEDs)

init_out 0 12
toggle 0 12

• tests/periph_adc (ADC_LINE(8) not accessible)
• tests/periph_spi (verified with logic analyzer and MISO/MOSI bridge)

init 0 0 2 0 23
send hello

• tests/driver_srf08 (for I2C)
• tests/periph_timer
• tests/periph_rtc, tests/periph_rtt
• tests/xtimer_usleep (verified with logic analyzer, not super accurate but seems legit)
• examples/saul (verified with LEDs) -> minor change request

[PeterKietzmann]

@leandrolanzieri please address squash immediately after addressing my comment. @aabadie would you remove your change request?

[leandrolanzieri]

@PeterKietzmann done

[PeterKietzmann]

examples/lua_REPL and tests/unittests need some blacklisting due to insufficient ram. @aabadie mind to remove your change request?

[benpicco]

Can a driver for this be found in some branch somewhere?

[leandrolanzieri]

I started doing one here. Basic functionalities but is working last time I checked.

[aabadie]

Do you plan to PR it ?

[leandrolanzieri]

If there is interest I can make it PR ready with the current features

[aabadie]

I think there certainly is. Maybe @keestux could be interested.

[benpicco]

I was looking into possible mobile uplinks for RIOT and found #10086 and this.

Having a PR probably won't hurt so this is not forgotten

[keestux]

BTW I am co-author of the Arduino libraries for these Ublox modems [1]. (Notice how I squeezed in the company name, just like Adafruit and others.))

Having drivers in RIOT is/was on my todo/wish list. And ultimately, be able to actually write applications with RIOT instead of the horrible Arduino.

I was wondering if it was worthwhile to convert these (C++) libraries into RIOT drivers. There's a lot of code to be re-used.

[1] https://github.com/SodaqMoja/Sodaq_R4X, https://github.com/SodaqMoja/Sodaq_N2X, https://github.com/SodaqMoja/Sodaq_3Gbee

[benpicco]

It should be possible to use Arduino libraries in RIOT #12518
But a 'native' driver would probably integrate better, I don't know.