Getting Started with i.MX8MP EVK

Getting Started with i.MX8MP EVK#

Overview#

The i.MX 8M Plus Evaluation Kit (EVK) is a full-featured development platform for the i.MX 8M Plus applications processor. The board provides comprehensive interfaces and expansion options for developing advanced Industrial IoT, edge computing, and multimedia applications.

This guide helps you quickly get started with the Robotics Edge Platform on your i.MX8MP EVK board using a pre-built image.

What You’ll Need

  • i.MX8MP EVK board

  • USB Type-A Male to Micro-B Male cable

  • USB Type-C cable (for power)

  • USB cable (for USB OTG)

  • microSD card (16 GB or larger recommended)

  • Host PC (Linux or Windows)

Hardware Setup#

Connect USB Debug Cable#

Connect a micro-B end of the supplied USB cable into Debug UART, then connect the other end to a host computer.

Two UART connections will appear on the host computer. The first port is for A53 core system debugging.

Serial Port Settings:

  • Baud rate: 115200

  • Data bits: 8

  • Parity: None

  • Stop bits: 1

  • Flow control: None

Terminal Applications:

  • Linux: Minicom, screen, picocom

  • Windows: PuTTY, Tera Term

  • macOS: screen, Serial (app)

Boot Switch Configuration#

The boot configuration switches control the boot device. For this quick start guide, we’ll use:

  • Serial Download Protocol (SDP) mode for flashing: 0001

  • SD card boot after flashing: 0010

Boot Switch Settings#

Boot Device

SW4-1

SW4-2

SW4-3

SW4-4

USB serial download (for flashing)

0

0

0

1

uSDHC2 SD card boot

0

0

1

1

Switch Position

0 = OFF, 1 = ON

Download Pre-Built Image#

The latest prebuilt images for the i.MX8MP EVK are available on the Robotics Edge Platform page.

Detailed Package Information

For complete details about the pre-built image package structure, file descriptions, and all available components, please refer to Download Pre-built Images.

You’ll need two files:

  1. imx-boot-imx8mp-lpddr4-evk-sd.bin-flash_evk - Bootloader

  2. robotics-edge-image-full-jazzy-imx8mpevk.rootfs.wic.zst - Root filesystem

Flash Image Using uuu#

Prerequisites#

  1. Connect the debug UART to the host machine using a USB Type-C cable

  2. Connect the USB OTG to the host machine using a USB cable

  3. Insert a microSD card into the board

  4. Turn off the board

  5. Set boot switches to 0001 (Serial Download Protocol mode)

Important

Make sure the board is powered OFF before changing boot switches!

Install uuu Tool#

Before flashing, you need to ensure the uuu (Universal Update Utility) tool is installed on your host PC.

Install uuu

For detailed installation instructions for Linux and Windows, please see:

UUU Installation Guide

Flash to SD Card#

Navigate to the directory containing your downloaded image files, then run:

sudo uuu -b sd_all imx-boot-imx8mp-lpddr4-evk-sd.bin-flash_evk robotics-edge-image-full-jazzy-imx8mpevk.rootfs.wic.zst

uuu.exe -b sd_all imx-boot-imx8mp-lpddr4-evk-sd.bin-flash_evk robotics-edge-image-full-jazzy-imx8mpevk.rootfs.wic.zst

What happens next:

  1. uuu waits for the USB device to connect

  2. Power on the board (it should be in SDP mode with switches set to 0001)

  3. uuu automatically detects the board

  4. Flashing progress will be displayed

  5. Wait for “Success” message

Flashing Progress

The flashing process typically takes 5-10 minutes depending on your USB connection speed.

Boot the Board#

After Flashing Completes#

  1. Turn off the board

  2. Change boot switches to 0010 (SD card boot)

  3. Power on the board

First Boot#

  1. Open your serial terminal (115200 8N1)

  2. You should see:

    • U-Boot messages

    • Linux kernel boot messages

    • ROS 2 environment initialization

    • Login prompt

Default Login:

  • Username: root

  • Password: (press Enter, no password by default)

Robotics Edge ROS2 1.0.0 imx8mpevk ttyTTYLP0
root@imx8mpevk:~#

Board Documentation

For complete board details, refer to the i.MX 8M Plus EVK product page.

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