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ARM FVP (FVP_BaseR_AEMv8R)

Run nano-ros on Arm’s Base_RevC AEMv8-R Fast Models — the Cortex-A SMP profile under Zephyr 3.7 (board id fvp_baser_aemv8r/fvp_aemv8r_aarch64/smp). The FVP is the canonical local proxy for the safety-island reference platforms that follow the same hwv2 Zephyr shape; pair this chapter with the Zephyr (west module) starter for the build half.

Phase 217. The build half (just zephyr build-fvp-aemv8r{,-cyclonedds}) shipped in Phase 117.13–117.14; the run half — invoking FVP_BaseR_AEMv8R and piping UART 0–3 to stdout — landed as Phase 217.A on 2026-06-03. See docs/roadmap/phase-217-arm-fvp-local-runtime.md.

When to use

  • You need to exercise a Cortex-A SMP Zephyr image on a developer laptop without dedicated silicon.
  • You’re bringing up a new hwv2 safety-island target — the FVP is the closest in-tree reference for board.cmake + SMP boot + Cyclone DDS shape.
  • You’re validating Phase 117 stock-RMW interop locally before promoting to a hardware bench.

The FVP is not a replacement for QEMU on Cortex-M (mps2-an385, mps3-an547); those targets are covered by FreeRTOS (QEMU) and the Zephyr starter. The FVP is also not the same surface as Corellium’s AVH cloud FVP — AVH packages firmware as .coreimg and provisions via a remote API; local FVP loads a raw ELF via -a cluster0.cpu*=<elf>. AVH is out of scope for this chapter.

Prereqs

  • A working Zephyr 3.7 workspace — run nros setup zephyr once if you haven’t (see the Zephyr starter).
  • The Arm Base_RevC AEMv8R Fast Models binary — license-gated. Download from developer.arm.com — Arm Ecosystem FVPs after accepting the EULA. nano-ros does not download it (the [gated.arm-fvp] row in nros-sdk-index.toml declares the tool but the fetch is your responsibility — same policy as the NVIDIA Orin SPE FSP).

After installing, export one of the discovery env vars:

# Preferred — Zephyr's canonical name; takes highest priority.
export ARMFVP_BIN_PATH=/opt/Arm/FastModels/Base_RevC_AEMv8R/models/Linux64_GCC-9.3

# Alternative — directory layout from the gated installer; the
# resolver scans `models/Linux64_GCC-*/` underneath it.
export ARM_FVP_DIR=/opt/Arm/FastModels/Base_RevC_AEMv8R

If neither is set, FVP_BaseR_AEMv8R is discovered via PATH as a last-ditch fallback.

Installer surface (Phase 217.B.1)

After extracting the Arm FVP tarball, run the discovery script:

ARM_FVP_DIR=/path/to/extracted/fvp \
    scripts/installers/arm-fvp-installer.sh

The installer locates FVP_BaseR_AEMv8R under $ARM_FVP_DIR, symlinks the containing directory to ~/.nros/sdks/arm-fvp/current/ (atomic via ln -sfn), and prints the export ARMFVP_BIN_PATH=… line for your shell rc. Run scripts/installers/arm-fvp-installer.sh --print-env later to re-emit the export. It never downloads anything — gated-tool policy.

Doctor check (Phase 217.B.2)

nros doctor --board fvp-aemv8r-smp cross-checks the [gated.arm-fvp] entry in nros-sdk-index.toml and warns (never hard-fails — gated) when the FVP can’t be resolved via ARMFVP_BIN_PATH, ARM_FVP_DIR, PATH, or the canonical ~/.nros/sdks/arm-fvp/current/FVP_BaseR_AEMv8R landing path. The just zephyr run-fvp-aemv8r{,-cyclonedds} recipes do the equivalent inline via scripts/zephyr/resolve-fvp-bin.sh and skip with a clear hint when the binary can’t be found.

Build

The build half is unchanged from Phase 117.13 / 117.14:

# Phase 117.13 — Zephyr-only talker.
just zephyr build-fvp-aemv8r

# Phase 117.14 — C++ pub/sub over Cyclone DDS, the wire-compat
# reference for the safety-island slice.
just zephyr build-fvp-aemv8r-cyclonedds

Each recipe shells west build -b fvp_baser_aemv8r/fvp_aemv8r_aarch64/smp inside the zephyr-workspace/ directory and produces zephyr.elf at one of:

  • zephyr-workspace/build-fvp-aemv8r-talker/zephyr/zephyr.elf
  • zephyr-workspace/build-aemv8r-cyclonedds-talker/zephyr/zephyr.elf

Run

Once the build artifacts and ARM_FVP_DIR / ARMFVP_BIN_PATH are in place:

# Boot the Phase 117.13 talker.
just zephyr run-fvp-aemv8r

# Boot the Phase 117.14 cpp/cyclonedds talker.
just zephyr run-fvp-aemv8r-cyclonedds

Under the hood the recipe:

  1. Verifies west + the Zephyr workspace + zephyr.elf exist; skips with a hint otherwise.
  2. Resolves the FVP binary directory via scripts/zephyr/resolve-fvp-bin.sh (priority order: ARMFVP_BIN_PATH → ARM_FVP_DIR/models/Linux64_GCC-*/ → dirname $(command -v FVP_BaseR_AEMv8R)).
  3. Exports ARMFVP_BIN_PATH=<dir> and shells west build -d <build-dir> -t run, which drives Zephyr’s cmake/emu/armfvp.cmake target with the canonical boards/arm/fvp_baser_aemv8r/board.cmake -C flags — UART 0–3 piped to stdout, GICv3, cache state, NUM_CORES from CONFIG_MP_MAX_NUM_CPUS. No flags are duplicated in the just recipe.

Exit cleanly with Ctrl-C.

Expected output

The Zephyr 3.7 boot banner appears on UART0 first, followed by the talker. The exact line counts depend on CONFIG_BOOT_BANNER and your locator config, but the markers to look for are:

*** Booting Zephyr OS build v3.7.0 ***
[00:00:00.xxx,000] <inf> nros: session up (domain 0)
Published: 0/1
Published: 1/2
...

For the cpp/cyclonedds recipe, the same banner is followed by Cyclone DDS reader-match logs and std_msgs/Int32 publish lines. Verify ROS 2 interop by running a sibling listener in another terminal:

# stock ROS 2 — reads the FVP's Cyclone DDS publisher
ros2 topic echo /chatter std_msgs/msg/Int32

The same std_msgs/Int32 payload + byte-equal CDR framing must appear on both sides — that’s the Phase 117 stock-RMW interop contract.

Cross-references