7 Communication Logger

Many communication protocols include meaningful data other than the payload. For example, the FSI protocol includes the frame type, user data, CRC byte, and frame tag fields in every frame. The Communication Logger feature provides bridge software that additionally extracts all the non-payload data from each received data packet. This feature allows the bridge device to receive communication peripheral data packets in any packaging format and export the data to a PC GUI to be analyzed. The packets sent to the GUI are formatted such that all parts of the message is designated for display to the user.

Although use cases vary, one application of this feature is debugging of an FSI implementation in an application. In this case, the application is already using FSI to communicate with another MCU, but has some communication errors or issues that need to be debugged. The Communication Logger can display every part of the FSI frames transmitted by the primary device in a human-readable format inside of the generated GUI.

Another use case is for data logging with a fast peripheral, similar to the use case of the Section 6 feature, but with more message details logged in the GUI. The Communication Logger feature is used to receive and (optionally) buffer high-speed FSI messages coming from the primary device, extract all elements of the message contents, and send them via UART or USB to the PC for visualization in a GUI.

The diagrambelow shows the Communication Logger feature being used with the setup shown in Section 2.3. Note that for this feature, the bridge device Sysconfig project is used to generate the Control Center PC GUI since the data packing/unpacking scheme between the bridge device and the GUI need to be commonly understood. If using Section 2.4, then an additional UART-to-USB bridge device is placed between the bridge device and the PC.

Figure 7-1 Communication Logger Diagram