Introduction to OTA technology of Internet of things

Last one 《 I'm afraid of cutting my beard when upgrading remotely ？ Detailed explanation FOTA Security upgrade 》 Got it OSC The recommendation of , Thank you very much for the official love . I found a lot of friends right OTA Technology is still quite curious , This time again OTA Make a detailed introduction to technology , If you are interested, let's watch it together ！

OTA Technical system

Internet of things OTA Upgrading technology mainly refers to ： Various IOT terminals pass Download Online Upgrade package on remote server , And complete the terminal system or application of the Internet of things Software upgrade To the new version of End cloud Integration combinatorial technique .

As can be seen from the definition ,OTA The most important technology is to upgrade the equipment software , in general OTA The technical system includes ：

1. Software version management ： The software version running on the terminal shall be managed uniformly ;
2. Task release management ： Remote control the deployed terminal OTA Upgrade task management ;
3. Connect the download pipeline ： How to communicate with all kinds of wireless / The integration of wired networks realizes the download business ;
4. End to side upgrade capability ： The terminal updates the new software system to its own system area ;
5. Safety and stability guarantee ： Whole OTA Business security and stability guarantee ;
6. Upgrade interactive experience ：OTA The upgrading experience of the business to the terminal and its users .

OTA Technical classification

OTA Technology can be classified in many ways , Including upgrade capability 、 Upgrade target 、 Upgrade process, etc , But no matter what technical solution is adopted , First of all, we must ensure OTA The success rate of Technology . The specific technical scheme is introduced below .

Upgrade capability classification

Package upgrade ： The whole package includes the whole system Partitioned data file , It is the most common way to upgrade , It's easy to implement , But the disadvantages are obvious , Including upgrade package 、 Large consumption of traffic 、 Upgrade time is waiting .

Compression upgrade ： Compression upgrade is to compress the firmware to be upgraded with tools , Then push the compressed upgrade file from the cloud to the device to be upgraded , The device to be upgraded decompresses through the decompression algorithm , Finally, complete the upgrade process . After compression, it can generally reach the whole package 70% about , The disadvantage is that it consumes a lot of traffic , Long decompression and upgrade time , High storage resource requirements , The device memory is also required to be high .

Differential upgrade ： Also called incremental upgrade or patch upgrade , The minimum upgrade package , The consumption flow is the smallest , High upgrade efficiency , Occupy moderate memory and storage resources . But the production of the upgrade package needs the support of differential algorithm , Old and new firmware together , When there are many different versions of the updated product , Differential relationship management and maintenance are complex .

Upgrade target classification

FOTA：Firmware Over the Air , Firmware upgrade , Upgrade the main program firmware , Generally, you need to restart the system to enter Bootloader Apply firmware to APP Partition .

SOTA：Software Over The Air, App upgrade , It mainly upgrades software applications running on the operating system , Need software architecture and operating system support , such as Linux and Andr oid etc. , The upgrade process does not require system restart .

Upgrade process classification

Table tennis upgrade ： namely AB upgrade , Two partitions of the same size APP1、APP2, If it's in APP1 Partition execution code , When upgrading, download the firmware to APP2 Partition . After the upgrade is successful, the device restarts , The module switches to APP2 Partition execution ; Next time APP1 Partition upgrade , Rotate in turn . This upgrade mode is corresponding to APP Partitions can be executed directly , Start speed block , But also because the code is in two APP Partition switching , Make code maintenance inconvenient and error prone .

Copy upgrade ： Local upgrade , The firmware only needs to be in one APP Partition execution , convenient , It's not easy to make mistakes. ,bootload You need to start from download Partition for copying , Slower .

Download method classification

Front desk download ： The new firmware is APP Download during operation , Firmware download is part of the application function , Download process , The application can be used normally , The disadvantage is that you need a separate download partition , It takes up a lot of resources .

Background download ： start-up BootLoader Download after , The new firmware directly overwrites the old firmware , There is no need to add a download partition , Save end-to-end resources , The application cannot run during the download , Upgrade when there is no separate download partition , Once it fails , The equipment is easy “ Brick ”.

OTA Market situation

in general ,OTA There are large R & D investment costs in the market 、 Need end + cloud + Business logic is coordinated by three parties , Too fragmented and complicated 、 It's about chips 、OS、 Connection, scene and other aspects , At the same time, it is unable to make accurate reliability evaluation and other technical pain points ; From a business perspective ,OTA It is a function that just needs medium and low frequency , Some products will consider it dispensable , It is also difficult to do after-sales support and maintenance after the product is sold , From the perspective of cost performance, we should consider the third party more than self research .

But at present, the Internet of things market is developing at a high speed , The frequency of interconnection and linkage of all things will only continue to increase , Many used to be packed for ten years , The equipment that has not been managed for ten years is also constantly advancing with the times . In the long run , Products have and support OTA The upgrading capability will become a key technical index for the subsequent model selection and development .

It's like Last post As mentioned in , The system has OTA Upgrade capability , It can help customers speed up the product launch in the process of project progress , It is convenient to repair functional defects and optimize product performance after product release , New functions can also be imported in time during subsequent maintenance , Enhance the product experience , Reduce operation and maintenance costs while improving after-sales efficiency .

There are so many benefits , Why not think about it ？

according to the understanding of ,OneOS OTA The cloud platform has provided version management 、 Strategic management 、 Security upgrade and other capabilities , In Shenzhen, devo children's watch 、 Guangzhou chuangloqi shared charging pile and other projects have completed the landing Application . some time ,OneOS Will continue to expand basic capabilities , Provide customers with richer Services , Let's look forward to it together ！