Nvidia Jetson TX1 as Access Point

To connect to the robot from another machine (Desktop, Laptop, Smartphone and Tablet) it is very useful that it can act as a WiFi access point, so you do not need to know its IP address, only turn on the controller PC and connect to the “MyzharBot-v4-AP” SSID.

There is a simple way to enable Wifi access point on Ubuntu using Unity default Network Manager:

  1. Disable WIFI and plug in an internet cable to your laptop so that your Ubuntu is connect to a wired internet and wireless is disabled.
  2. Go to Network Icon on top panel -> Edit Connections …, then click the Add button in the pop-up window.
  3. Choose Wi-Fi from the drop-down menu when you’re asked to choose a connection type
    1. In next window, do:
    2. Type in a connection name (i.e. MyzharBot-v4-AP). The name will be used later.
    3. Type in a SSID (i.e. MyzharBot-v4-AP)
    4. Select mode: Infrastructure
    5. Device MAC address: select your wireless card from drop-down menu.
  4. Go to Wi-Fi Security tab, select security type WPA & WPA2 Personal and set a password. You can also leave the connection Open… it’s your oen choise.
  5. Go to IPv4 Settings tab, from Method drop-down box select Shared to other computers.
  6. Click Save

After above steps, a configuration file created under “/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections“directory. File name is the same to the connection name you typed in step 3-B.

  1. Now press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and hit enter to edit the configuration file:
    sudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/wifi-hotspot
  2. Replace wifi-hotspot with the connection name you typed in step 3-B (i.e. MyzharBot-v4-AP).
  3. When the file opens, find out the line mode=infrastructure and change it to mode=ap.
  4. Finally save the file.

Differently from Nvidia Jetson TK1, we need another little hack for Nvidia Jetson TX1 to enable the SSID broadcast:

  1. In the terminal open the file /etc/modprobe.d/bcmdhd.conf for editing:
    sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/bcmdhd.conf
  2. Add the following line at the end of the file:
    options bcmdhd op_mode=2
  3. Save and reboot the Nvidia Jetson TX1

When everything’s done, enable WIFI from Network Manager icon on the panel. It should automatically connect to the hotspot you created. If not, select “Connect to Hidden Wi-Fi Network …” and select it from the drop-down box.

The robot will now get automatically the IP 10.42.0.1 and a DHCP server is enabled, so every device that connects to “MyzharBot-v4-AP” will get an IP in the class 10.42.0.*

When you will boot the Jetson TX1 after this configuration theMyzharBot-v4-AP willl be automaticaclly active, so if you want to connect to a different wifi network you must disconnect it and select one of the available connection using Network Manager.

You can find the original full guide and other interesting stuffs on UbuntuHandbook Blog and the new step for Nvidia Jetson TX1 on the Nvidia Developer forum thanks to the user “ctichenor”

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