RA8D1 AI Kit Development Platform

Overview

The AIK-RA8D1 provides developers with multiple and reconfigurable connectivity functions to expedite AI/ML system development. This easy-to-use hardware platform for multimodal AI/ML solutions is based on the RA8D1 MCU from the RA family of 32-bit MCUs.

The hardware platform is intended for use in a variety of AI/ML single or multimodal use cases supporting vision, real-time analytics, and audio. It enables multiple combinations of different plug-in sensors with the available onboard analog microphones and camera.

On-board support is included for several of the most commonly used peripherals, as well as interfaces for several common ecosystem standards.

The key features of the AIK-RA8D1 board are categorized as follows:

Renesas RA8D1 Microcontroller Group

  • R7FA8D1BHECBD

  • 176-pin LQFP package

  • 480 MHz Arm® Cortex® -M85 core with Helium®

  • 1 MB on-chip SRAM

  • 2 MB on-chip code flash memory

  • 12 KB on-chip data flash memory

  • On-board external SDRAM (128Mbit)

Connectivity

  • One USB micro AB full speed connector for the Main MCU

  • SEGGER J-Link® On-board (OB) interface for debugging and programming of the RA8D1 MCU. A 10 pin JTAG/SWD interface are also provided for connecting optional external debuggers and programmers

  • Six PMOD connectors, allowing use of appropriate PMOD compliant peripheral plug-in modules for rapid prototyping

  • One Auxiliary Port connector

  • One CAN interface

  • One RJ-45 RMII Ethernet interface

Other on-board features

  • 20-pin DVP interface for camera input

  • 2 Analog MEMS microphones

  • Two user push button switches

  • One LED RGB

Hardware

Detailed Hardware features for the AIK-RA8D1 kit can be found at AIK-RA8D1 - User’s Manual [1]

Supported Features

The aik_ra8d1 board supports the hardware features listed below.

on-chip / on-board
Feature integrated in the SoC / present on the board.
2 / 2
Number of instances that are enabled / disabled.
Click on the label to see the first instance of this feature in the board/SoC DTS files.
vnd,foo
Compatible string for the Devicetree binding matching the feature.
Click on the link to view the binding documentation.

Programming and Debugging

The aik_ra8d1 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug

Applications for the aik_ra8d1 board can be built, flashed, and debugged in the usual way. See Building an Application and Run an Application for more details on building and running.

Configuring the Debug Probe

The AIK-RA8D1 board includes an on-board SEGGER J-Link debugger. SEGGER J-Link drivers are available at https://www.segger.com/downloads/jlink

To use the on-board J-Link debugger, ensure that:

  1. The J-Link OB is connected to the host PC via the USB port (J10).

  2. The J-Link OB jumper is in the default configuration as described in the AIK-RA8D1 - User’s Manual [1].

Configuring a Console

Connect a USB cable from your PC to the on-board virtual COM port (J10), and use a serial terminal of your choice (minicom, PuTTY, etc.) with the following settings:

  • Speed: 115200

  • Data: 8 bits

  • Parity: None

  • Stop bits: 1

Flashing

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b aik_ra8d1 samples/hello_world
west flash

Open a serial terminal, reset the board (push the reset switch S1), and you should see the following message in the terminal:

***** Booting Zephyr OS v4.3.0-xxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx *****
Hello World! aik_ra8d1

Debugging

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b aik_ra8d1 samples/hello_world
west debug

Open a serial terminal, step through the application in your debugger, and you should see the following message in the terminal:

***** Booting Zephyr OS v4.3.0-xxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx *****
Hello World! aik_ra8d1

References