3.3. Pynq-Z1/Z2 Firmware Setup

Below, we describe how to setup the Pynq-Z1/Z2 and the FOBOS 3.0 firmware on the Pynq board.

3.3.1. Requirements

  1. A PC with Linux installed.

  2. Python3 is installed.

  3. Xilinx Vivado 2022.1 is in the search path.

  4. FOBOS 3 is downloaded and unpacked on the PC (see SCA Workstation).

  5. Digilent Pynq-Z1/Z2 board (control board) with the PYNQ SD card image v3.0.1 installed from http://www.pynq.io/board.html.

3.3.2. Setup Pynq to use static IP address

In order to connect to your Pynq board from the SCA workstation reliably, you have to make sure that the Pynq board uses a static IP address. If you reserved a static IP address for your Pynq board in your dhcp server, then you don’t need to complete the following steps.

Make sure you have a USB connection to the Pynq board and can connect to it with a terminal program such as minicom (Linux) or terra term (Windows).

Connect to the Pynq board using the terminal application and edit /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth0. Replace the address with an available IP address on your network and the gateway with the IP address of your internet gateway.

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth0:1
iface eth0:1 inet static
        address 192.168.2.99
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        gateway 192.168.2.1

Next remove the existing resolv.conf as it is a symbolic link

sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf

and create a new file resolv.conf that contains your favourite / company nameserver or Google’s nameserver as shown below.

nameserver 8.8.8.8

Now restart the networking services to apply these changes.

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Important

  1. Make sure that the Pynq board and the SCA Workstation are connected via Ethernet and you can reach the Pynq board from the PC using ssh.

  2. Make sure that the Pynq boad has the correct time. Check with the date command. The time will be in UTC which is in winter 5 hours ahead of EST and in summer 4 hours ahead of EDT. If not, probably the name resolution failed. Check if you can ping www.google.com.

Now you can remove the USB cable from the Pynq.

3.3.3. Install Additional Packages on Pynq

  1. Connect to the Pynq via ssh.

  2. Update the package list to get the latest available packages.

    sudo apt-get update

  3. (Optional) Install GNU Midnight Commander mc, a visual file manager that runs in full-screen text mode.

    sudo apt install mc

  4. In order to run the calibration script for power measurements install the following python modules.

    sudo pip install pyvisa
sudo pip install pyvisa-py

3.3.4. Build the Pynq Overlay

The creation of the Pynq Overlay file for FOBOS is completely scripted and can be accomplished in just a few steps. Make sure vivado version 2022.1 is in the search path. Select the make option based on your Pynq board and the revision of the FOBOS shield as shown in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1 Makefile options

FOBOS Shield

Board

rev 1

rev 2

PYNQ Z1

pynq_z1_rev1

pynq_z1_rev2

PYNQ Z2

pynq_z2_rev1

—

  1. cd fobos/control/pynqctrl/vivado/

  2. make pynq_z2_rev1

  3. make synth

  4. Go and make yourself a cup of coffee or tea, this is going to take a while.

  5. When Vivado is done, you will have the files pynq_ctrl.bit and pynq_ctrl.hwh in the fobos/control/pynqctrl/vivado/ directory.

3.3.5. Install FOBOS Firmware

The next step is to get the FOBOS firmware and the newly created overlay onto the Pynq Board.

  1. Start the Pynq board and make sure it completed its start-up procedure, i.e., the 4 user LEDs are flashing and then stay lit.

  2. Copy the fobos/software directory to the /home/xilinx/ directory on the Pynq board using scp or sftp so that the software can be found in /home/xilinx/fobos/software.

  3. Copy the files pynq_ctrl.bit and pynq_ctrl.hwh from fobos/control/pynqctrl/vivado/ to your Pynq board into the /home/xilinx/fobos/software/firmware/pynq directory.

  4. Use ssh to get a command prompt on the Pynq board, change directory to the fobos/software/firmware/pynq directory and run the script sudo ./install-pynq.sh. It will ask you several questions about your Pynq setup, install the necessary files, and start the FOBOS server called pynqserver.

    FOBOS stores its configuration in the file fobos/software/firmware/pynq/config/pynq_conf.py.

3.3.6. Trouble Shooting

FOBOS creates two log files in the /tmp directory of the Pynq board.

fobos.log shows what the FOBOS server is doing including the commands it receives from the SCA Workstation and the corresponding responses.

fobos-watchdog.log shows the status of the FOBOS server. The watchdog restarts the FOBOS server when it becomes unresponsive.