Design of IoT Wireless Programmer for Microchip AVR Microcontrollers’ OTA Firmware Updates

Abstract

Sensor Networks (WSN) are mainly composed of intelligent interconnected devices (things) that require remote ubiquitous over-the-air re-programming. Conse- quently, existing functionalities are updated, and firmware errors and security flaws are corrected along with the addition of new functionality. These enable their designated applications to be dynamically re-purposed. In this paper, a reliable design of an IoT Wireless Microchip ATMEL AVR Programmer device that provides firmware OTA updates utilizing Wi-Fi and LoRa technologies is proposed. It supports both the official Program and Debug Interface (PDI) and Tiny Programming Interface (TPI) for Microchip ATMEL AVR programming and debug- ging. TPI and PDI protocols are supported by the Microchip ATMEL AVR ATtiny and ATxmega family of microcontrollers. The research’s fundamental contribution is to realize wireless communication for the standard official Microchip ATMEL AVR Programmer for remotely writing, reading, erasing, and verifying a microcontroller’s Flash and EEPROM memories without the need for a custom bootloader. Simulations are performed utilizing the AVRDUDESS and the NetBurner Virtual COMM Port Converter applications that proved robust firmware OTA up- dating procedures. Experimental work is conducted on the AVR ATtiny10/20 and ATxmega32A4U microcontrollers, which proved an outstanding performance of sending a 6.315KB firmware file within 25 and 35 seconds using Wi-Fi and LoRa respectively.

Sustainable Security: Exploring Longevity Challenges and Solutions for IoT

“…Without having the source code to the software Chapter 3. Software Updates in IoT: An Empirical Study responsible for performing updates on Apple devices, we are unable to determine how exactly the update is performed; however, combining an analysis of the directory tree with prior reverse engineering efforts [12] along with Apple's platform security documentation [102] gives us a relatively good understanding of how the update is performed.…”

“…We believe a general-purpose operating system for IoT is unlikely to see the same degree of adoption as e.g., Microsoft Windows or Linux due to the massive hardware heterogeneity in IoT 12 . Existing IoT operating systems such as Contiki [44],…”

“…The early days of personal computers that included operating systems 12. Manufacturers of microprocessors in the IoT space…”