Embedded Android App & OS Development

Android is growing fast inembedded applications. TheGateworks Android Development kitis a great starting point for customers that need to get going quickly with both the hardware and software.

To aid in Android software development, Gateworks has developed an example Android application showcasing the interaction of the software with the Gateworks Android hardware. The application features support for the user GPIO, LEDs and more. An easy to useAndroidlibrary is also provided which can be utilized for any customapplication development.

Gateworks has documented Android Software onthe following wiki pages:

  • OS Development –This wiki page coversitems dealing with the lower level operating system. This includes items on the serial console command line such as init scripts, ADB, partitions, command line networking, LED control, GPIO control and other hardware integration.
  • App Development – This wiki pagedetails the building of anAndroid App(APK file) independent of building the entire Android OS. Topics covered include setting up the Android Studio IDE, writing sample code for a Hello World App, as well as using an external Gateworks code library for accessing low level items through the app such as GPIOs, LEDs and more.
    • Gateworks Android Library – This is a library that allows easy integration to low level system items such as LEDs, GPIO, PWM and voltage and temperature.

Gateworks Android Demo App

Gateworks has used the information above to create a Gateworks Demo App that is publicly available on GitHub here. The app features auser friendly front end for controlling some hardware features on the board utilizing the GateworksUtil library. Screenshots of the app can be seen below:

gateworks-demo

Figure 1. (Above) LED control of the trigger and the on / off state. GPIO as input or output and state.

gateworks-demo_hwmon

Figure 2. (Above)Hardware system statistics

gateworks-demo_pwm

Figure 3. (Above)PWM enable, period and duty cycle.

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