Hi
Totally new to the forum, and I have a new project to announce!
I have developed a series of tiny Ethernet switches for use in robots and drones. Full disclosure, the hardware is not open-source, however, we (my brother Aaron and I) have developed open-source (MIT License) switch management software.
At present this software allows port-based VLANs and port mirroring, however any of the features on the onboard ethernet switch chip we use (the IP175G) will be possible.
Our intent is to build an open-source software toolchain to allow managed ethernet switch functions to run on very tiny ethernet switch hardware. We believe there is nothing like this that currently exists and it could enable a massive amount of functionality and smarter internal networks inside drones/robots.
At present, the software is in two parts.
Part 1 is firmware that runs on the STM32L011D4P7 onboard. This firmware takes UART commands and parses them into MDIO commands to configure the onboard ethernet switch IC.
Part 2 is the software that takes command line arguments and parses them into UART commands to send to the hardware.
You just need any USB to UART converter to make the connection between the PC and switch.
Currently, the software only runs on our 10/100Mbps switches but we will be creating something for a new tiny 1Gbps switch we are developing too.
The full writeup is here, including links to the confluence and github pages.
I’d welcome any collaborators, questions, or criticism to help make this software something special.