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User Guide

RemotiveLabs is a lightweight and language agnostic platform for software-centric automotive development. We offer a free evaluation licence for 30 days. RemotiveBroker can be installed on the hardware of your choice (we have a growing list of reference kits).

tip

Just curious and only need a first taste? We offer a cloud demo with recorded signal data. Get a first sense of the platform without logging in: Go to demo in cloud. If you have questions regarding the platform, licence cost or if you have ideas on features you’d like to see? Join our GitHub community or feel free to Contact us!

Get your licence​

Please follow the steps below which include installing RemotiveBroker on the hardware of your choice before you can request a licence. Email support@remotivelabs.com in case of questions.

1. Choose your hardware​

RemotiveBroker can be installed on the hardware of your choice. Please find our growing list of reference kits under our Downloads & Documentations page on our website.

a. Reference kit: Raspberry Pi​

For convenience purposes we provide prebuilt Raspberry Pi 4 images with the Seeed CAN-shield drivers. If you don't have a can shield you can use any socketcan compatible usb device, keep reading.

Prerequisites
Raspberry Pi + CAN-BUS HAT for Raspberry Pi
SD card in an SD card reader connected to your computer
Raspberry Pi Imager, which can be downloaded from here

  1. Download the latest image from https://releases.remotivelabs.com/. At the time of writing this is rpi-20220908_154525.img.gz.
  2. In Raspberry Pi Imager, choose "Use custom" and then select the downloaded image and write the image to the SD card.
  3. Put the SD card in the Pi
  4. Connect the Pi to ethernet, so it gets internet access, where it will download additional upgrades when available (highly recommended)
caution

ssh access is by default only available over wired ethernet. Username/pwd pi/Aut0m0tive

  1. Boot the Pi, this might take a few minutes the first time

  2. Next it's time to connect to the Pi with a web-browser, but first we need to resolve the IP to the RemotiveBroker.

    Connected to internet through router (wired)

    If possible, the easiest way is the get the IP/URL from your router using its admin interface.

    If this is not possible, you need to connect to the RemotiveBroker internal Wi-Fi access point. From your phone or computer, connect using WiFi remotivelabs-* (password: remotivelabs) and navigate to http://192.168.4.1:8080. In "About" section your can find the URL where the broker is accessible on your regular Wi-Fi.

    alt text

    Change back to your regular Wi-Fi and use http://ip_in_your_router:8080 instead. You now have internet access from both your client and the RemotiveBroker which will make things easier as we move on.

    Not connected to internet router

tip

If you are not connected to internet, you need to connect to the RemotiveBroker internal Wi-Fi access point. From your phone or computer, connect using WiFi remotivelabs-* (password: remotivelabs) and navigate to http://192.168.4.1:8080. In this state there is no internet access on your desktop or your browser which means that things get a bit more complicated as we move on.

  1. In web-client navigate to "About" it should now look something like this.

    alt text

You are now ready to Request a License (step 2 below).

b. Reference kit: Linux with Docker​

Prerequisites
You will need git, docker, docker-compose installed on your linux distribution

  1. Get going with docker-compose in a few moments by using our bootstrap repository

  2. Next step is to request a License (see below)

2. Request a Hardware License​

Running RemotiveBroker requires a valid hardware license. We offer a 30-day free evaluation license. After installing RemotiveBroker you can request a license through the web-client.

alt text

tip

If you are not connected to internet, pay extra attention to the steps in the guide since you will need to switch back and forth between networks on your desktop.

  1. Press "Apply new license to broker" and you will se something like this.

alt text

info

Your email MUST be part of an organisation with a licence policy, otherwise a 30-day trial version is created for you.

  1. Enter your email and press "Request License"

  2. Wait for the returning e-mail and copy/paste the licence phrase and press "Apply license".

  3. Under "License" it should now look something like this, and you are now good to start use your RemotiveBroker.

    alt text

    You now have an operational licenced RemotiveBroker.

3. What to do next​

Below some tips for how to start getting value from RemotiveBroker and RemotiveExplorer. We recommend (in the order of your choice):

  • If you haven’t already, join our GitHub Community for Q&A and discussions
  • Check out code samples
  • Check out RemotiveCloud
  • Share your client code here, just make a PR, and we'll have a look.

Code samples

When your RemotiveBroker is up and running you are ready to connect and run your own code.

We offer a few code examples at our Github samples repository.

As a developer you may choose to use our maintained libraries or work directly towards our public gRCP api, as mentioned before, share your code; just make a PR, and we'll have a look.

Python​

The Python samples are found in the python directory in our samples repository. All the Python samples use our Python library which is available in the Python Package manager PyPi.

Install the Python library with pip in a terminal:

pip install -U remotivelabs-broker

After the installation in complete you may execute any of the samples in the Python directory.

Remember all our samples requires a RemotiveBroker which is up and running. Each sample is provided with a readme file explaining how to run the sample with the necessary arguments.

You can host your RemotiveBroker locally alternatively you can deploy you RemotiveBroker in RemotiveCloud.

Android VHAL integration​

For more information, go here.

Your first configuration (in car)

Using this configuration you will be able to subscribe or record live signals in a real vehicle (or any operational can bus).

info

This example requires that you have equipment which can be connected to the vehicle. Possible setup is a or b with a socketcan adapter.
You also need the proper matching dbc file which corresponds to the bus you are connecting to.

Once the RemotiveBroker is operational with a license you can use the web-client to generate a configuration that the RemotiveBroker can use.

There are two ways to configure the RemotiveBroker, one is to use the UI wizard and the other way is to upload a configuration directory containing the required files. Here we will use the wizard.

  1. In the menu in web-client choose "Configuration" and you should see something like this.

    alt text

  2. Under "Don´t have a configuration?" , press "Create configuration here" to start the wizard.

    Pick your dbc file, and then you can just click through all steps without any changes. The last step "Reconfigure" will upload the configuration to the broker

  3. Your RemotiveBroker is now ready to subscribe to signals in your car.

tip

If it's quiet on the bus you can try and enable/disable the terminator on your can adapter (shield or connected using USB).

About configuration​

The following is a typical and very simple configuration

{
  "chains": [
    {
      "namespace": "my_can0",
      "type": "can",
      "database": "can/MyCAN.dbc",
      "device_name": "can0"
    },
    {
      "namespace": "my_can1",
      "type": "can",
      "database": "can/MyOtherCAN.dbc",
      "device_name": "can1"
    }
  ]
}
  • namespace is your given name, which you can choose freely. This is the name you will use when you browse the bus in the tree view of write some code to access it. Suggestions would be: BodyCAN, VehicleCan
  • type suggest what kind of physical link we are connecting to. This could be can, canfd, vcan, lin, flexray, udp
  • database hold information on how to encode and decode the traffic on link. Typically, a file with extension ldf, dbc, xml
  • device_name is the physical socket representation on your host computer. These names are controlled by your linux kernel and can be listed by doing ip a. On our prebuilt images valid names are [can0..can1], [vcan0..vcan3]

The example above contains two namespaces for the sake of clarity. Your configuration can hold any number of namespace depending on your hardware setup.

Upload your custom configuration​

You can upload your custom configuration, in the web-client choose "Configuration" and select "Pick directory". For the example above the directory which should be selected should contain the following

alt text

Once uploaded the RemotiveBroker will verify that the configuration is valid, if not please verify that your interfaces.json and the relative database paths are correct.

info

Advanced reference for interfaces.json is located here.

Additional interfaces​

As the configuration above suggested additional interfaces can be added to the existing setup. Some of these setups requires ssh and custom configuration of the host, in this scenario, the Raspberry Pi 4.

Typical usb to ethernet adapter here

In this case host refers to Raspberry Pi 4

LIN interfaces​

Connect a secondary usb to ETH adapter to the host. Here you can connect a single LIN transivers box alternatively a switch with a number of LIN transivers each lin transceiver is identified and configured according to it's unique device_identifier

This id needs to reflect and be present in interfaces.json. The following configuration shows two lin devices, 8 and 7. Note that 8 has been configured to operate as master whereas 7 operates as slave.

Each LIN transceiver need a unique set of target_port and server port which can be selected freely. Once the transceivers get powered their configurations will be distributed.

{
  "chains": [
    {
      "namespace": "ecu_A",
      "type": "lin",
      "config": {
        "device_identifier": 8,
        "server_port": 2014,
        "target_port": 2013
      },
      "node_mode": "master",
      "database": "ldf/test.ldf",
      "schedule_file": "ldf/test.ldf",
      "schedule_table_name": "DEVMLIN01Schedule01",
      "schedule_autostart": true
    },
    {
      "namespace": "ecu_B",
      "type": "lin",
      "config": {
        "device_identifier": 7,
        "server_port": 2015,
        "target_port": 2016
      },
      "node_mode": "slave",
      "database": "ldf/test.ldf"
    }
  ]
}
info

The prebuilt image will host a DHCP server on the added adapter. LIN transceivers and the RemotiveBroker needs to reside on the same subnet. Other custom topologies are supported and sometimes preferred.

CAN interfaces (additional)​

Any socketcan compatible USB dongle can be added when physical interfaces are required. Amongst others, PEAK-System does provide such devices.

Flexray interfaces​

info

Write is currently not supported out of the box and requires customizations.

Technica CM CAN COMBO​

info

Make sure that your Techinca devices is configured to use PLP headers and also make sure to note specified Destination MAC (available by clicking SPY) typically 01:00:5e:00:00:00.

Connect your Technica device to the secondary usb ethernet interface eth1 which is mentioned above. As multicast address provide Destination MAC.

{
  "chains": [
      {
         "type": "flexray",
         "device_name": "flexray0",
         "namespace": "MyFlexrayNamespace",
         "config": {
            "target_host": "127.0.0.1",
            "target_port": 51112,
            "hardware": "Technica_CM_CAN_COMBO",
            "target_config": {
               "interface": "eth1",
               "multicast": "01:00:5e:00:00:00"
            }
         },
         "database": "fibex_files/flexray.xml"
      }
   ]
}

Host Mobility MX-4 T30 FR​

Host Mobility MX-4 T30 FR can be used as a host for RemotiveBroker alternatively it can be configured to forward flexray traffic.

Check out bootstrap repository for more information on how to get going.