User's Manual

Speedway Revolution Installation and Operations Guide Octane 4.4

Chapter 4: Upgrading Firmware

Chapter 4: Upgrading the Speedway Revolution

Firmware

Speedway Revolution contains firmware known as Octane. The current version of

Octane is 4.4. This chapter details manually upgrading a single reader.

In addition to supporting upgrade procedures, Speedway Revolution also provides

methods for reverting firmware to a previous valid image and restoring firmware

to factory default settings. The procedure for reverting to the previous valid

image is explained in this chapter, while returning to factory defaults is explained

in Chapter 5.

A Brief Overview of the Speedway Revolution Firmware

To minimize downtime and maximize the robust handling of possible upgrade

failures, Speedway Revolution contains dual images of its firmware. When

requesting a firmware image upgrade, the reader continues to operate using the

primary image. In the background, Speedway Revolution upgrades the secondary

image. When the upgrade completes, the reader reboots to the newly upgraded

image. Speedway Revolution retains the previous firmware version in case there

are problems with the upgrade.

There are three individual partitions within each firmware image that logically

organize the system software. Although you do not need a full understanding of

this architecture to perform a simple manual upgrade, it is a good idea to be

familiar with its structure at a high level. For a more in-depth discussion of the

firmware and how firmware is organized, see the Embedded Developer’s Guide.

The three partitions in firmware are:

• System Operating Partition (SOP)—The SOP is the primary system

partition of the Speedway Revolution reader. It contains the Linux kernel,

FPGA firmware, RFID management software, reader management

software (Rshell), logging management software, firmware upgrade

control, system watchdog software, and the factory default data.

• System Persistent Partition (SPP)—Files in this partition are

automatically generated and maintained by the software running on the

reader. It contains the reader configuration (network settings, LLRP

configuration, log settings, and so on), reader logs, and debug information

used by Impinj engineers.

• Custom Application Partition (CAP)—CAP partition contains custom

application software, other items required by the custom application

(extra libraries or tools, and configuration files), plus custom application

logs.

Upgrading the Firmware

Speedway Revolution provides three methods for upgrading:

• using Rshell, command line interface

• copying the firmware to a USB memory drive and plugging into the

reader’s host port

• via the web interface