Over-the-air (OTA) integration: Renesas RZ/G2L and Yocto 3.1 Dunfell

Human machine interfaces (HMIs) and display systems in industrial and building automation, security panels, point of sale (POS) systems, door phones, and IoT edge devices, such as a network gateway or an edge server, require secure and robust over-the-air (OTA) software updates. For these use cases, integrating OTA updates with Renesas RZ/G2L and Yocto 3.1 Dunfell is a common requirement.

This blog guides embedded hardware designers and developers who want to deploy and manage secure OTA software updates to a fleet of embedded devices, leveraging Renesas RZ/G2L and Yocto 3.1 Dunfell integrations.

Renesas RZ/G2L microprocessor

The Renesas RZ/G2L microprocessor includes a dual-core Cortex-A55 (1.2 GHz) CPU, 16-bit DDR3L / DDR4 interface, 3D graphics engine with Arm Mali-G31, and video codec (H.264). With various interfaces, including camera input, display output, USB 2.0, and gigabit ethernet, the Renesas RZ/G2L microprocessor is ideal for applications such as entry-class industrial human-machine interfaces (HMIs) and embedded devices with video capabilities.

The Renesas RZ/G2L is built on high-performance CPU cores with various accelerators and peripheral functions. The RZ/G2L provides high speed, real-time control; high speed (maximum 600MHz) 32-bit Cortex-R CPU core and large tightly-coupled memory (TCM) realize deterministic real-time response. The RZ/G2L also supports embedded Vision AI for industrial-grade heat and power efficiency, delivering high-speed AI inference at low power consumption. The RZ/G2L also supports an HMI for drawing capabilities, camera input, and audio input for WVGA, WXGA, and 2D graphics are supported based on RZ/A. There are also built-in 3D drawing and full HD video codec functions based on RZ/G.

With Renesas RZ/G2L, engineers can easily implement high-resolution HMI and embedded AI solutions, as well as real-time control and industrial ethernet connectivity.

Use cases for Renesas RZ/G2L

The Renesas RZ family of 32-bit and 64-bit microprocessors (MPUs) are designed to enable solutions that Renesas believes are required for the smart societies of the future. Through high-performance CPU cores and various accelerators and peripheral functions, embedded engineers and developers can implement high-resolution HMI, embedded vision, embedded AI, real-time control, and industrial ethernet connectivity.

RZ/G2L is a general-purpose MPU for Vision AI, HMI, and IoT Edge applications.

Reference integration: Mender OTA, Renesas RZ/G2L, and Yocto 3.1 Dunfell

Note: Mender has been verified to work on a Renesas RZ/G2L board, including U-Boot-based boards, for which the Mender integration checklisthas also been verified. The Renesas Verified Linux Package (VLP) works with the whole RZ/G2 and RZ/V2 family of MPUs. This reference integration can also be used to run other MPUs in the family as well.

The integration tutorial provides the following:

• Prerequisites: Requirements to build a Yocto image for this OTA integration.
• Build configuration: Instructions on how to set up the Yocto build environment, change the configuration, and build the image.
• Renesas board setup: Steps to setting up the Renesas RZ/G2L evaluation kit for booting and Renesas toolset for flashing.
• SD card preparation: Guide to partitioning, validating, formatting, and copying files to the microSD card.
• U-boot setup: Basic U-boot setup to boot the board.
• Additional references and test results

Ready to try it yourself? Check out the step-by-step integration guide on Mender Hub.

Not a Mender user? Start your free trial today. Test Mender Enterprise and the Renesas integration (or one of the many others) for 12 months on up to 10 devices.

A special thanks to Stefan Ungerechts, principal engineer at Renesas, for inspiring this important integration for embedded AI applications.