Introduction to Using MaixCAM MaixPy UART Serial Port

Introduction to Serial Ports

A serial port is a communication method that includes the definitions of both hardware and communication protocols.

  • Hardware includes:
    • 3 pins: GND, RX, TX, with cross-connection for communication. RX and TX should be cross-connected, meaning one side's TX should connect to the other side's RX, and both sides' GND should be connected together.
    • Controller, usually inside the chip, also known as the UART peripheral. Generally, a chip can have one or more UART controllers, each with corresponding pins.
  • Serial communication protocol: To ensure smooth communication between both parties, a set of protocols is established, specifying how communication should occur, including common parameters like baud rate and parity bit. Baud rate is the most commonly used parameter.

Using the serial port of the board, you can communicate data with other microcontrollers or SOCs. For example, human detection can be implemented on MaixCAM, and the detected coordinates can be sent to STM32/Arduino microcontrollers via the serial port.

Using Serial Port in MaixPy

MaixCAM's default configuration exposes a serial port through the USB port. By plugging in the Type-C adapter board, you can directly use the serial port pins. Alternatively, you can use the A16(TX) and A17(RX) pins directly on the board, which are equivalent to those exposed via the USB port, refer to IO interface image:


maixcam_pro_io

When using the serial port exposed through USB on MaixCAM, note that the RX and TX pins on the Type-C adapter board will swap between regular and reverse insertions (assuming the Type-C female port is facing forward and matching the silk screen). If communication fails, try flipping the Type-C connection to see if it resolves the issue. Although this is a design flaw, frequent plug/unplug operations are rare, so adapting to it is acceptable.

After connecting the two communicating boards (cross-connecting RX and TX and connecting both GND), you can use software for communication.

Using the serial port with MaixPy is simple:

from maix import uart

device = "/dev/ttyS0"
# ports = uart.list_devices() # List available serial ports

serial = uart.UART(device, 115200)
serial.write_str("hello world")
print("received:", serial.read(timeout = 2000))

Here, we use the first serial port /dev/ttyS0, which is the serial port exposed via Type-C mentioned above.

More serial port APIs can be found in the UART API documentation.

MaixCAM Serial Port Usage Notes

TX Pin Notes

MaixCAM's TX (UART0) pin must not be in a pulled-down state during boot-up, or the device will fail to start. This is a characteristic of the chip. If you are designing a 3.3v to 5v level-shifting circuit, be sure not to default it to a pulled-down state and keep it floating (consider using a level-shifting chip).

If the device fails to boot, also check whether the TX pin is pulled down.

Connecting to a Computer via Serial Port

Developers may ask: Why doesn't the serial port device appear on the computer when the USB is plugged in? The answer is that the USB on the device defaults to a virtual USB network card without serial port functionality. To access the device's terminal, use SSH connection.

For MaixCAM, the serial port 0 from the Type-C adapter board is directly connected to the A16(TX) and A17(RX) pins. It can be connected directly to other devices, such as microcontrollers' serial port pins. To communicate with a computer, use a USB-to-serial converter board (such as this one).

Boot Log Output

It is important to note that MaixCAM's serial port 0 will output some boot logs during startup. After startup, the message serial ready will be printed. When communicating with a microcontroller, discard this information. If there are system startup issues, the boot log from serial port 0 can help diagnose the problem.

Sending Data

There are mainly two functions for sending data: write_str and write.

The write_str function is used to send strings, while write is used to send byte streams, i.e., str and bytes types, which can be converted to each other. For example:

  • "A" can be converted to b"A" using the encode() method, and vice versa, b"A" can be converted back to "A" using the decode() method.
  • str cannot display some invisible characters, such as the ASCII value 0, which is generally \0 in strings and serves as a terminator. In bytes type, it can be stored as b"\x00".
  • This is more useful for non-ASCII encoded strings. For example, the Chinese character 好 in UTF-8 encoding is represented by three bytes \xe5\xa5\xbd. We can use "好".encode("utf-8") to get b"\xe5\xa5\xbd", and b'\xe5\xa5\xbd'.decode("utf-8) to get "好".

So if we need to send byte data, we can use the write() method to send it. For example:

bytes_content = b'\x01\x02\x03'
serial.write(bytes_content)

Therefore, for the str type, you can use serial.write(str_content.encode()) instead of write_str to send it.

If you have other data types that you want to convert into a string to send, you can use Python string formatting to create a string. For example, to send I have xxx apple, where xxx is an integer variable, you can do:

num = 10
content = "I have {} apple".format(num)
content2 = f"I have {num} apple"
content3 = "I have {:04d} apple".format(num)
content4 = f"I have {num:d} apple"
print(content)
print(content2)
print(content3)
print(content4)
print(type(content))
serial.write_str(content)

Additionally, you can encode the data into a binary stream to send. For example, the first 4 bytes are hexadecimal AABBCCDD, followed by an int type value, and finally a 0xFF at the end. You can use struct.pack to encode it (if this is unclear, you can read the explanation later):

from struct import pack
num = 10
bytes_content = b'\xAA\xBB\xCC\xDD'
bytes_content += pack("<i", num)
bytes_content += b'\xFF'
print(bytes_content, type(bytes_content))
serial.write(bytes_content)

Here, pack("<i", num) encodes num as an int type, which is a 4-byte signed integer. The < symbol indicates little-endian encoding, with the low byte first. Here, num = 10, the 4-byte hexadecimal representation is 0x0000000A, and little-endian encoding puts the low byte 0x0A first, resulting in b'\x0A\x00\x00\x00'.

Here, we use i to encode int type data as an example. Other types, such as B for unsigned char, etc., can also be used. More struct.pack formatting options can be searched online with python struct pack.

In this way, the final data sent is AA BB CC DD 0A 00 00 00 FF as binary data.

Receiving Data

Use the read method to read data directly:

while not app.need_exit():
    data = serial.read()
    if data:
        print(data)
    time.sleep_ms(1)

Similarly, the data obtained by the read method is also of the bytes type. Here, read reads a batch of data sent by the other party. If there is no data, it returns b'', which is an empty byte.

Here, time.sleep_ms(1) is used to sleep for 1ms, which frees up the CPU so that this thread does not occupy all CPU resources. 1ms does not affect the program's efficiency, especially in multithreading.

In addition, the read function has two parameters:

  • len: Represents the maximum length you want to receive. The default is -1, meaning it will return as much as there is in the buffer. If you pass a value >0, it means it will return data up to that length.
  • timeout:
    • The default 0 means it will return immediately with whatever data is in the buffer. If len is -1, it returns all data; if a length is specified, it returns data not exceeding that length.
    • <0 means it waits until data is received before returning. If `

lenis-1, it waits until data is received and returns (blocking read for all data); if a length is specified, it waits until it reacheslen` before returning.

  • >0 means it will return after this time, regardless of whether data is received.

It may seem complex, but here are some common parameter combinations:

  • read(): Which is read(-1, 0), reads the data received in the buffer, usually a batch of data sent by the other party. It returns immediately when the other party has stopped sending (within one character's sending time).
  • read(len = -1, timeout = -1): Blocking read for a batch of data, waits for the other party to send data and returns only when there is no more data within one character's sending time.
  • read(len = 10, timeout = 1000): Blocking read for 10 characters, returns when 10 characters are read or 1000ms has passed without receiving any data.

Setting a Callback Function for Receiving Data

In MCU development, a serial port interrupt event usually occurs when data is received. MaixPy has already handled the interrupt at the bottom layer, so developers don't need to handle the interrupt themselves. If you want to call a callback function upon receiving data, you can use set_received_callback to set the callback function:


from maix import uart, app, time

def on_received(serial : uart.UART, data : bytes):
    print("received:", data)
    # send back
    serial.write(data)

device = "/dev/ttyS0"

serial = uart.UART(device, 115200)
serial.set_received_callback(on_received)

serial0.write_str("hello\r\n")
print("sent hello")
print("wait data")

while not app.need_exit():
    time.sleep_ms(100) # sleep to make CPU free

When data is received, the set callback function will be called in another thread. Since it's called in another thread, unlike an interrupt function, you don't have to exit the function quickly. You can handle some tasks in the callback function before exiting, but be aware of common multithreading issues.

If you use the callback function method to receive data, do not use the read function to read it, or it will read incorrectly.

Using Other Serial Ports

Each pin may correspond to different peripheral functions, which is also known as pin multiplexing. As shown below, each pin corresponds to different functions. For example, pin A17 (silkscreen identification on the board) corresponds to GPIOA17, UART0_RX, and PWM5 functions. The default function is UART0_RX.


maixcam_pro_io

By default, you can directly use UART0 as shown above. For other serial port pins, they are not set to the serial peripheral function by default, so you need to set the mapping to use other serial ports. Use pinmap.set_pin_function to set it.

Let's take UART1 as an example. First, set the pin mapping to choose the serial port function, then use the device number /dev/ttyS1. Note that uart.list_devices() will not return manually mapped serial ports by default, so you can directly pass the parameters manually:

from maix import app, uart, pinmap, time

pinmap.set_pin_function("A18", "UART1_RX")
pinmap.set_pin_function("A19", "UART1_TX")

device = "/dev/ttyS1"

serial1 = uart.UART(device, 115200)

Application Layer Communication Protocol

Concept and Character Protocol

Serial ports only define the hardware communication timing. To let the receiver understand the meaning of the character stream sent by the sender, an application communication protocol is usually established. For example, if the sender needs to send coordinates containing two integer values x, y, the following protocol is established:

  • Frame Header: When I start sending the $ symbol, it means I'm about to start sending valid data.

Content: Designing a start symbol is because serial communication is stream-based. For example, sending 12345 twice may result in receiving 12345123 at some moment. The 45 from the second frame has not been received. We can determine a complete data frame based on start and end symbols.

  • The value range of x, y is 0~65535, i.e., an unsigned short integer (unsigned short). I'll first send x then y, separated by a comma, such as 10,20.
  • Frame Tail: Finally, I'll send a * to indicate that I've finished sending this data.

In this way, sending a data packet looks like $10,20* as a string. The other party can receive and parse it using C language:

// 1. Receive data
// 2. Determine if the reception is complete based on the frame header and tail, and store the complete frame data in the buff array
// 3. Parse a frame of data
uint16_t x, y;
sscanf(buff, "$%d,%d*", &x, &y);

Thus, we have defined a simple character communication protocol with a certain degree of reliability. However, since we usually use parameters like 115200 8 N 1 for serial ports, where N means no parity check, we can add a checksum to our protocol at the end. For example:

  • Here, we add a checksum value after x, y, ranging from 0 to 255. It is the sum of all previous characters modulo 255.
  • Taking $10,20 as an example, in Python, you can simply use the sum function: sum(b'$10,20') % 255 --> 20, and send $10,20,20*.
  • The receiver reads the checksum 20, calculates it in the same way as $10,20, and if it is also 20, it means no transmission error occurred. Otherwise, we assume a transmission error and discard the packet to wait for the next one.

In MaixPy, encoding a character protocol can be done using Python's string formatting feature:

x = 10
y = 20
content = "${},{}*".format(x, y)
print(content)

Binary Communication Protocol

The character protocol above has a clear characteristic of using visible characters to transmit data. The advantage is simplicity and human readability. However, it uses an inconsistent number of characters and larger data volumes. For example, $10,20* and $1000,2000* have varying lengths, with 1000 using 4 characters, which means 4 bytes. We know an unsigned short integer (uint16) can represent values ranging from 0~65535 using only two bytes. This reduces the transmission data.

We also know visible characters can be converted to binary via ASCII tables, such as $1000 being 0x24 0x31 0x30 0x30 0x30 in binary, requiring 5 bytes. If we directly encode 1000 in binary as 0x03E8, we can send 0x24 0x03 0xE8 in just 3 bytes, reducing communication overhead.

Additionally, 0x03E8 is a 2-byte representation with 0xE8 as the low byte, transmitted first in little-endian encoding. The opposite is big-endian encoding. Both are fine as long as both parties agree on one.

In MaixPy, converting a number to bytes is simple with struct.pack. For example, 0x03E8 (decimal 1000):

from struct import pack
b = pack("<H", 1000)
print(b)

Here, <H indicates little-endian encoding, with H denoting a uint16 data type, resulting in b'\xe8\x03' as bytes.

Similarly, binary protocols can have a frame header, data content, checksum, frame tail, or a frame length field instead of a frame tail, based on preference.

Built-in MaixPy Communication Protocol

MaixPy also includes a built-in communication protocol.

Using this protocol, it is possible to implement application switching, application control, and data retrieval via serial communication or even TCP.

For example, the coordinates detected by an AI detection application after identifying an object can be parsed using this protocol.

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