Debugging stm32f4 via bluetooth

Question

I'm rather unexperienced on the field of microcontrollers, I come from a Java background so the question might seem a bit noob but I didn't find much information on this.

So is it possible to debug an STM32F4 board via bluetooth (using eclipse or some othe IDE)? And if so could you send me some links that might help? We're building a robotic car controlled by a discovery board and debugging using an USB cable is not really an option if we don't want to disassemble the whole stuff every time something goes wrong. Hence this would really come in handy. So any help is appreciated

Answer 1

For doing this you would need to find a "Bluetooth Enabled" Debugger. I have never seen any and not sure whether there exists such thing or not.

I would suggest you one thing: Assuming you have bluetooth connectivity between your board and your Machine,

Insert Debug strings: Send some strings from your board to your PC via Bluetooth. These strings will give you what's going on in Circuit.

For example, After Initialization, send "Init Completed" and like that. You can see these strings and see what's wrong. I usually do this for my Wireless Device.

Answer 2

What you're wanting to do is really not practical; you're coming at this from way too high a level and trying to imagine the system as if it were running an operating system from the word go.

When you get the STM32 it as empty shell; you need to program it to do what you need to do and the only [sensible] way to get register-level debugging is to use a JTAG interface.

If, and this is a big if, you get it working reliably, but just want to give some debug information back while it is running, you could write a load of routines within the code to send out debugging messages when it enters certain parts of the program - and send it out over Bluetooth - but this is nothing like what you're used to single stepping through your Java code with Eclipse. If you want to do that kind of thing, you are going to have to put a little connector on that allows you to connect your JTAG or two-wire debugger cable to the processor. Even then, when you do that, you will be completely resetting your program and not simply single stepping through from where it went wrong.

You could insert a monitor program within your program to send out register values, program status etc over Bluetooth, but you still have to write the inital code and the only way to do this with out a ridiculous amount of trail and error is via your JTAG or two-wire interface.

Answer 3

Would this product work? It's a "IOGEAR Bluetooth Serial Adapter, GBC232A" for connecting to a serial port over bluetooth. I'm interested in wireless debugging too because my surface-clone dev computer only has one usb and this seems like it could be convenient over a tangle of usb cords and a usb hub. I have zero experience with any of this, so maybe you could validate or invalidate it as an option. I figure it just needs a proper serial connector wired up on the board and power from on-board?