OMAP Wireless Connectivity WLAN Station demo NLCP GUI

WLAN Demo use-cases

This page demonstrates three main demo use-cases.

1. Connect AP and Perform a “ping” Test.
2. Perform Web-Browsing over the EVM GUI.
3. Perform Web-browsing over the EVM in non-Internet environment.

Hardware Configuration

Description

The PC is connected to the EVM through a serial port, allowing us to send "ping" commands using the Graphical User Interface (GUI).
The EVM will connect to an AP, then we will send "ping" from the EVM to the AP in order to check the wireless connectivity.

Overview

The following setup is a basic topology network, to enable wlan connection and test it using TI WL12xx mac80211 driver.

Basic topology requires:

1. One PC
2. One access-point
3. One EVM board running wl12xx mac80211 station driver.

It is assumed that the EVM board runs a full SDK package, including GUI and wpa supplicant.

The Setup

1. PC ("Console PC") - running Win/Linux OS. This PC will be used as console for the EVM board. It is not obligatory for the connection.
2. Access point - set to non-secured mode.
3. EVM board – running full SDK package, including GUI and supplicant.

Prerequisites

Before starting the Connection process, it is assumed that the board is connected to the PC via the serial port, and is controlled through the serial port application. It is also assumed that the board is already booted and has the Linux prompt ( The "console PC" will be used only to ping the AP; it is not obligatory for the connection).
Otherwise refer to < AM37x board bringup> in order to boot the AM37x board, or to the < AM18x board bringup> in order to boot the AM18x board.

WLAN Connection Work Flow

This section explains the Connection work flow.
Prerequisites and One-Time Procedures

• Calibration – Calibration process is a one-time procedure, performed before any WLAN operation. It is necessary to perform Calibration once after board assembly, and in any case the 1271 connectivity daughter-card or the EVM are replaced by new ones.
• MAC address setting - This is a one-time procedure, to be done before any WLAN operation, and after completing the Calibration process.

For instruction, use the following links: <Calibration Process> and <modifying WLAN MAC Address>.
Steps for Establishing connection to WiFi Network

• Step 1: On the main GUI matrix, click Wi-Fi icon.

A screen showing Wi-Fi and SoftAP will pop up. Choose Wi-Fi


In AM-18 board A screen with "Run" Icon will appear - click on it.
In AM-37 board A screen with "WPA" Icon will appear - click on it.

• Step 2: Click the "scan" button.

A window with AP list will popup. Click on the "scan" button and the AP list will be updated.

• Step 3: Select an AP from the list and double click it. A window containing the AP information will popup.

• Step 4: Fill the key if this AP is secured. Click the "Add" button and the AP info window will be closed.

• Step 5: Close the AP list window using the "close" button and the first wpa supplicant window will appear again. The AP that was added in Step 4 will be displayed in the "SSID" drop-box.
• Step 6: Select the AP in the "SSID" drop-box.

Click the "connect" button at the bottom.

The connection status will be update in the Status field.

• Step 7: If connection was established, you can close the wpa_gui window by clicking the "X" on the top right. The main matrix screen will be displayed again.

WLAN Connection Work Flow - WPA

This section explains the Connection work flow, for WPA connection.
Prerequisites and One-Time Procedures

• Calibration – Calibration process is a one-time procedure, performed before any WLAN operation. It is necessary to perform Calibration once after board assembly, and in any case the 1271 connectivity daughter-card or the EVM are replaced by new ones.
• MAC address setting - This is a one-time procedure, to be done before any WLAN operation, and after completing the Calibration process.
• USB Keyboard connected to the EVM in order to type the WPA PSK for connection. You might need a USB hub in order to supply power to the keyboard.

For instruction, use the following links: <Calibration Process> and <modifying WLAN MAC Address>.
Steps for Establishing connection to WiFi Network

• Step 1: On the main GUI matrix, click Wi-Fi icon.

A screen showing Wi-Fi and SoftAP will pop up. Choose Wi-Fi



In AM-18 board A screen with "Run" Icon will appear - click on it.
In AM-37 board A screen with "WPA" Icon will appear - click on it.

• Step 2: Click the "scan" button.

window with AP list will popup. Click on the "scan" button and the AP list will be updated.

• Step 3: Select an AP from the list and double click it. A window containing the AP information will popup.

• Step 4: Fill the key if this AP is secured, scroll down and click the "Add" button and the AP info window will be closed.

Note: if you do not have a scroll option, maximize the window by double clicking the frame, then the scroll bar will appear.

• Step 5: Close the AP list window using the "close" button and the first wpa supplicant window will appear again. The AP that was added in Step 4 will be displayed in the "SSID" drop-box.
• Step 6: Select the AP in the "SSID" drop-box, then click the "connect" button

The WPA-GUI application will show the connection status and address an IP for the EVM (if AP supports DHCP) as follows:



If we scroll down in the status below:



In the example above the EVM gets the address 192.168.2.205 from the DHCP server

Get an IP Address for the EVM Board

A udhcp client is running in the background when the WiFi icon was clicked. To see the IP address that the EVM recieved from the DHCP, look at the AP info window OR use ifconfig [interface] command.

root@am37x-evm:~# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr DE:AD:BE:EF:00:00  
          inet addr:192.168.3.8  Bcast:0.0.0.0  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:195 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:18042 (17.6 KiB)  TX bytes:1220 (1.1 KiB)

Remark: The AP should run DHCP server, otherwise you should set a static IP for the wlan0 interface using ifconig wlan0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx up command.

Perform a “ping” Test

Run a "ping" command from the EVM (using the PC console) to the AP.
Assuming that the IP address of the AP is 192.168.1.1, the command should be:

ping 192.168.1.1

The result should be something like:

PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: seq=0 ttl=64 time=10.838 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: seq=1 ttl=64 time=10.778 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: seq=2 ttl=64 time=10.647 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: seq=3 ttl=64 time=10.568 ms

This means that we established a connection with the AP via the EVM.

Perform Web-Browsing over the EVM GUI

Two setup topologies are provided for web browsing over the EVM GUI. These setups are:
Option 1: The EVM is connected to an AP which is connected to the Internet directly.


To perform web browsing from the EVM, the AP should be connected to the internet on its WAN interface.
When AP is connected to the internet you should:
1. Connect to AP
After connection was established, click the web browser icon on the EVM GUI.
A browser window will open, with the default address. To set a different address you need to connect USB keyboard and type the required address (the keyboard has to be connected to the USB using USB Bridge with Electrical power, since the EVM cannot supply the required power through the USB). We've used the following websites: http:/doc.qt.nokia.com

Option 2: In case there in no Modem to connect to the Web
The EVM is connected to an AP which is connected to a web server based PC. This is useful in case we do not have Internet access but still need to demonstrate the web capabilities.


In case there is no internet connection available, for Demonstrating the Web Access then as an alternative it possible to demonstrating web browsing were the web server is located on PC which is connected to the EVM (that works in Soft AP mode) through the Ethernet port.
For Web server we used Apache (any other web server can fit as well), it is an open-source HTTP server for modern operating systems including UNIX and Windows. The web server can downloaded from <Apache web server>. (for demo we used the Apache HTTP Server 2.2.19 Released that was published on 2011-05-22)

For the Demo please follow the steps:
Connect the WLAN and the Ethernet connections

1. Connect to AP
2. Assuming the AP Ethernet port IP address is 192.168.2.1
3. Connect the Web Server PC to the EVM using Ethernet cable
4. Set the PC (that is connected to the AP via the Ethernet cable) Ethernet port to have static IP for example use 192.168.2.10 - For more information follow the link <Windows>

Set the Web server on the PC that is connected to the AP

1. For Demo please use Apache web server (or any other available web server) that can be downloaded from <Apache web server>
2. install web server on PC that will behave as the internet cloud
3. Download the wiki page html source from: <wiki Page Source>
4. Extract the zip file to a local folder on the PC
5. set the html web page that is seen when browsing the web server to the location where you extracted the wiki page sources

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