ANT Forum

My Project Manager asked me to put together a rough time estimate to get power data off the Lemond Power Pilot which gathers data from the Lemond Revolution trainer. The Lemond Power Pilot uses the Fitness Equipment mode and we need to decide if we have time to support this trainer with our first product release. Our current product uses a PIC18 microcontroller so we will have to port the firmware from the MSP430 to the PIC once we have finished development.We purchased the NRF24AP2-DK to get started.

There is a lot of information to sift through but I am starting to get a handle on the ANT protocol and ANT+ device profiles, but still have a ways to go to fully understand it. I have read the "Getting Started with ANT Development in Embedded Systems" and have a few questions.

1. Do I need to make a PCB from the reference Gerbers to load the IAR workbench ANT protocol examples on or can we load them directly onto the NRF24AP2 USB dongle from the devkit?

2. Ditto for the Code Composer Studio ANT+ device profile and ANT-FS examples?

3. We just need to grab and store the power data from the Power Pilot on the microcontroller and do not need to transfer the data to a PC, so do we need to implement ANT-FS as well?

4. Must all Fitness Equipment Mode devices use the FIT protocol?

5. Could someone give me a very rough time estimate for how long it would take to develop and port the firmware to accomplish these tasks(weeks, months, etc.). (Obviously this would vary depending on the engineer but assuming a competent firmware engineer was on the job.)

Thank you in advance,

Paul      

1. Do I need to make a PCB from the reference Gerbers to load the IAR workbench ANT protocol examples on or can we load them directly onto the NRF24AP2 USB dongle from the devkit?

2. Ditto for the Code Composer Studio ANT+ device profile and ANT-FS examples?

The ANT devkit does not include a microcontroller. You may wire an ANT module to your microcontroller to get started quicker on your evaluation, or you can make a PCB. We recommend to use the embedded reference code for ANT+ device profiles (Code Composer) as a starting point, as it is more readable, and shows some of the mechanisms for decoding data pages, as well as the ANT-FS client implementation.
Also, would greatly recommend using the PC tools (ANTFS PC Tools and ANTware) to mock the behavior of the FE display, to get familiar with the messages you need to implement.

3. We just need to grab and store the power data from the Power Pilot on the microcontroller and do not need to transfer the data to a PC, so do we need to implement ANT-FS as well?

Yes, you do need the ANT-FS client implementation to manage the session, but you do not need to implement file transfer.
If you have more questions regarding specifics of the device profile, please post on the ANT+ Forums.

4. Must all Fitness Equipment Mode devices use the FIT protocol?

Do you intend to record the real time data you receive from the fitness equipment for any purpose? If you are not interested in storing data, you probably will not need to implement FIT, but this format is recommended for interoperability.      

Do you intend to record the real time data you receive from the fitness equipment for any purpose? If you are not interested in storing data, you probably will not need to implement FIT, but this format is recommended for interoperability.

No we don't need to store the data locally, but may look into implementing FIT at a later date then.

I am confused as to why I would need to implement ANT-FS if I don't plan on transferring the data to a PC. Is ANT-FS needed between the raw data sensors and display device as well?

Is this the correct devkit to run the ANT+ and ANT-FS example programs.
http://www.ti.com/tool/ez430-f2013

I couldn't locate any MSP430 example firmware for Fitness Equipment mode, is there any?

Thanks again,
Paul      

ANT-FS is used for session management between the FE and the display (i.e. watch). Please refer to the fitness equipment device profile for more details of the channels involved.

There is no embedded reference code for this profile.
The ANT+ sample code was designed for the MSP430F2274 - it is not associated with a particular devkit. You will need to connect the serial pins as in the figure here
http://www.thisisant.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,146/func,view/catid,25/id,1391/