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Nucleo-F767ZI (Zephyr, Renode twin)

Support level: nucleo-f767zi-zephyr. Each page states what nano-ros can show for the board (where it runs, how often, and its breadth), generated from the board support registry; Board Support Levels explains the words.

One talker on an ST Nucleo-F767ZI (STM32F767ZI, Cortex-M7) running Zephyr 3.7, talking to ROS 2 over the board’s USB serial port. You do not need the board: Renode emulates it on your machine, and its USART3, the UART the Nucleo’s ST-LINK carries to your USB port, is wired to your host the way the cable would be. No network is configured anywhere in this chapter; ethernet comes after it.

This chapter assumes a Linux x86_64 host (or the container the install page describes) with a C/C++ compiler, ROS 2 Humble with ros-humble-rmw-zenoh-cpp, and the install done, so nros is on your PATH. It uses Zephyr’s own tools the way the Zephyr chapter does; read that one for what each piece is. WiFi is deferred to the Zephyr 4.4 line, where the Pico W’s WiFi driver exists, so no chapter here opens over WiFi yet.

Provision the board

Zephyr’s host tools first: west and the build tools Zephyr’s Getting Started lists (nros setup installs no system packages). On Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends git cmake ninja-build gperf \
    device-tree-compiler python3-pip python3-venv xz-utils file wget
pip3 install --user west
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Then the board:

nros setup nucleo-f767zi-zephyr --rmw zenoh
export ZEPHYR_SDK_INSTALL_DIR="$(nros locate tool zephyr-sdk)"

That fetches what the board needs into a shared store under ~/.nros: the Zephyr SDK, the zenoh-pico sources, the Rust target, and Renode, the emulator the board runs in here. It installs no router: the router is ROS’s rmw_zenohd, from the ROS 2 install above.

A west workspace that pins Zephyr 3.7 and fetches only the modules this board builds with, hal_stm32 among them (import: true would fetch every vendor HAL):

mkdir -p nucleo_ws/manifest && cd nucleo_ws
cat > manifest/west.yml <<'WEST_YML'
manifest:
  remotes:
    - name: zephyrproject-rtos
      url-base: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos
  projects:
    - name: zephyr
      remote: zephyrproject-rtos
      revision: v3.7.0
      import:
        name-allowlist: [cmsis, picolibc, mbedtls, tinycrypt, mcuboot, net-tools, hal_stm32]
  self:
    path: manifest
WEST_YML
west init -l manifest
west update --narrow -o=--depth=1
pip3 install --user -r zephyr/scripts/requirements-base.txt
export ZEPHYR_BASE="$PWD/zephyr"

Last, give the workspace the patches nano-ros carries for Zephyr 3.7:

nros setup board nucleo-f767zi-zephyr --zephyr-workspace .

Scaffold the talker

nros new nucleo_ws --board nucleo-f767zi-zephyr --template talker --lang c
cd nucleo_ws

That wrote a workspace with two packages: src/nucleo_node/, the C talker, and src/nucleo_node_bringup/, whose system.toml ends in the [image.zephyr] block naming the board. The Zephyr application itself is generated under build/ when you build. The board reaches the zenoh router on your host through USART3, which Zephyr calls serial@40004800, at 115200 baud. Say so with one line at the end of the bringup’s system.toml:

echo 'locator = "serial/serial@40004800#baudrate=115200"' >> src/nucleo_node_bringup/system.toml

The line lands in the [image.zephyr] block, under the board = "nucleo-f767zi-zephyr" line the scaffold wrote. The board’s own configuration already turns Zephyr’s IP stack off and gives USART3 to zenoh; its console is USART6.

Run in the twin

Source ROS 2, then build and run. ROS 2 provides the router, and its message definitions are what the build generates the talker’s std_msgs code from. This first run records the ROS 2 prefix in the workspace, so later runs of it need no sourced shell:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
nros run nucleo_node --expect 'Publishing:'

Publishing: 'Hello World: 1'
nros run: matched after

nros run generates what the build reads (the message code and the board’s build settings, under build/), builds the firmware through west (the first build takes a few minutes; later ones take seconds), boots it in Renode’s nucleo_f767zi machine with USART3 on a terminal device of your host, starts rmw_zenohd on that device, and then lets the board run. What it prints is the board’s console, USART6: *** Booting Zephyr OS build v3.7.0 ***, then the talker’s Publishing: 'Hello World: 1' and on. With --expect it stops everything and exits 0 at the first console line containing that text, and exits 1 if the board stops first.

Without --expect it keeps running until you press Ctrl-C. Start it that way in one terminal:

nros run nucleo_node

Publishing: 'Hello World: 2'

See it from ROS 2

In a second terminal, ask ROS 2 for the topic. The router nros run started also listens where a ROS 2 node on this machine looks for one, so nothing needs to be configured:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_zenoh_cpp
ros2 topic echo /chatter std_msgs/msg/String --qos-reliability best_effort

data: 'Hello World:

The talker publishes best-effort, so the echo asks for best-effort too. Ctrl-C in the first terminal stops Renode and the router together.

Ethernet

The Nucleo’s on-chip ethernet MAC works in Renode: the talker reached a router over tcp/ with Zephyr’s eth_stm32_hal driver in an early spike. That run needed a host tap device bridged to Renode’s virtual switch, which takes CAP_NET_ADMIN (the spike made one inside a rootless network namespace), and nros run does not set one up yet. So this chapter stops at serial; the ethernet chapter comes with that support.

Flash a real board

On the bench, nros flash programs the same image through Zephyr’s own runner for the board, OpenOCD over the Nucleo’s ST-LINK:

nros flash

Not replayed. No probe runs this flash line (a CI runner has no board), so it is written from the board’s runner, not measured (tracking issue).

On the real board USART3 is the ST-LINK’s virtual COM port, so the zenoh link arrives on your host as a USB serial device (/dev/ttyACM0, say), and the router listens there instead of on Renode’s terminal device. The console, USART6, is on the board’s pins rather than on the USB cable.

If it didn’t work

  • nros run names what failed and the log it wrote. no runner package drives or the plan's tools name no renode: run the nros setup nucleo-f767zi-zephyr step again, which installs Renode.
  • A router that would not start usually means rmw_zenohd was not found (source your ROS 2 setup in that terminal) or another router already holds port 7447 on this machine.
  • A build that cannot find hal_stm32: the west workspace predates the hal_stm32 line in its allowlist; add it and run west update again.
  • Everything else: Troubleshooting - First 10 Minutes.

Where to go next