The Production Process of Location Anchors and Location Tags
Product production is divided into two steps: hardware production and factory initialization.
Hardware production: We purchase the required components ourselves, place an order with a PCB manufacturer to make the PCB, and entrust a SMD(Surface Mounted Device) factory to do the surface mount (soldering). Finally, what we get is a PCBA, which is a semi-finished board with components installed. Sometimes, due to procurement cycle time, some components may be soldering by ourselves.
After getting the PCBA, we first powered on to see if it was normal. Sometimes, components on the board may have weak soldering or short circuits. If the soldering is OK, some LEDs on the board will light up.
If there is no abnormality when powering on, you can flash the firmware. The firmware on the board is divided into two parts: Bootloader and Firmware.
Bootloader is a boot loader, which is fixed and unchanged throughout life. In other words, once it is flashed to the board, the Bootloader will not change. Even if there is a new Bootloader version in the future, the user's device cannot be updated.
Firmware is normal firmware, which performs normal functions and can be upgraded to a new version at any time.
We use a special firmware Flasher to flash the Bootloader, and most factories will use a firmware Flasher to flash the firmware. The firmware in the Flasher is encrypted to prevent it from being read by others. The programmer also has a flash count, which can count how many times it has been flashed.
After the bootloader is flashed, a factory initialization work needs to be done.
Factory configuration of the anchor: For the anchor, it is connected to the network (in fact, the power on mentioned above means connected to the network, because it uses POE for power supply). We have a dedicated computer running the factory initialization program. This program will automatically assign a MAC address and serial number to the new anchor, automatically write firmware to the new anchor, and automatically write the default anchor configuration. The factory configuration program can also print the nameplate of the new anchor, that is, use a label printer to print out an instant label with relevant information about the anchor: such as manufacturer, MAC address, serial number, anchor model, etc.
The factory configuration program will also do some testing at the same time, such as communicating with the reference anchor to confirm that UWB communication is normal; the factory configuration program pretends to be a location engine to confirm that it can normally receive data packets from the new anchor.
Factory configuration of the tag: The factory configuration of the tag is similar to that of the anchor. The difference is that the tag uses a USB data cable to connect to the configuration computer instead of using the network. Run the "tag factory configuration program" on the configuration computer. The configuration program will automatically assign an EUI64 address to the tag and upload the tag firmware to the new tag.
The factory configuration of the tag will also communicate with the reference anchor to confirm that UWB communication is normal.
For some tag models, we have a built-in RFID tag. We use an RFID Reader and Writer to write some initialization information to the RFID. This operation is also performed by the tag factory configuration program.
The tag factory configuration program also prints the tag's nameplate.