RK182X Development Environment Quick Setup

The RK182X is a PCIe accelerator card with no application CPU; all programs must run on the host (RK3588 / RK3576).

Overall block diagram

Host (RK3588 aarch64)                                   RK182X (PCIe)
───────────────────────                                 ─────────────
Native gcc (preinstalled)                               No application CPU
/lib/firmware/rknn3_rk1820.img  ──►  PCIe firmware loading
        │                                               NPU inference
        ▼
Executable ──► run directly + rknn3.service forwarding ──► /dev/dri/renderD128

For detailed installation of each component or the complete on-board workflow, see ch04 Environment Setup in Detail or ch05 Quick Start.

1. On-Board Native gcc Verification

The RK182X accelerator card has no application CPU; all programs are compiled and run natively on the host (RK3588 / RK3576).

Check gcc

which gcc

Output:

/usr/bin/gcc
gcc --version | head -2

Output:

gcc (Debian 12.2.0-14+deb12u1) 12.2.0
Copyright (C) 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Compile

cat > test.c <<'EOF'
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
    printf("Native compile test on RK3588\n");
    return 0;
}
EOF

gcc test.c -o test_native
./test_native

Output:

Native compile test on RK3588

2. RK182X Firmware Loading

The RK182X has no U-Boot / MaskROM / USB flashing port; firmware is pushed over PCIe by the host (RK3588 / RK3576).

Check PCIe Device Visibility

/usr/bin/pcie_upgrade_tool ld 2>&1 | sed 's/\x1b\[[0-9;]*m//g'

Output:

Program directory: /usr/bin/
List of connected rkep devices
Addr=0004:41:00.0 [1d87:182a]

Check the pcie-rkep Driver

lsmod | grep pcie_rkep

Empty output is normal for the following command: the driver is built into the kernel, not an error.

Output:

(no output — driver is built into the kernel)

Push Firmware Over PCIe

# Auto-detect the BDF
bdf=$(/usr/bin/pcie_upgrade_tool ld 2>&1 | sed 's/\x1b\[[0-9;]*m//g' | grep -o 'Addr=[0-9:a-f]*' | head -1 | cut -d= -f2)
sudo /usr/bin/pcie_upgrade_tool -s "$bdf" uf /lib/firmware/rknn3_rk1820.img

Output (when the device is already running):

Program directory: /usr/bin/
Downloading firmware...
Device boot state: 0x00004b52
Device is not in maskrom mode or loader mode

The device is already in normal running state (0x00004b52); firmware update requires maskrom/loader mode. Under normal circumstances the firmware is loaded automatically by rknn3.service, so this command does not need to be run manually.

Check the Proxy Service Status

systemctl status rknn3.service --no-pager

Output (example):

● rknn3.service - rknn3 runtime service
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/rknn3.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-08-17 17:10:10 CST; 31min ago
   Process: 508 ExecStart=/bin/rknn3_startup start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Main PID: 1795 (rknn3_transfer_)
       CPU: 8min 27.987s
   CGroup: /system.slice/rknn3.service
             ├─1795 /bin/rknn3_transfer_proxy
             └─1807 rknn3_transfer_proxy -s 0004:41:00.0

Key Points

  • Firmware path: /lib/firmware/rknn3_rk1820.img
  • Device node: /dev/pcie-rkep-<BDF>
  • Proxy process: /bin/rknn3_transfer_proxy
  • PCIe device ID: 0x1d87:0x182a
  • System service: rknn3.service

3. Where Is the SDK?

The SDK can be deployed to any directory, e.g. /userdata/RK1820_RK1828_AI_SDK/ or /home/<user>/RK182X_SDK/; use your actual deployment location. The text below uses $SDK_DIR for the SDK root directory:

SDK_DIR=/userdata/RK1820_RK1828_AI_SDK   # replace with your actual deployment path
ls $SDK_DIR/

Output:

build.sh
docs
driver
examples
package
pkgroot
rknn
scripts
DirectoryPurpose
driver/pcie-rkep PCIe driver source (with Makefile)
rknn/rknn3-runtime/librknnrt.so, librknn3_api.so user-space runtime
rknn/rknn3-toolkit/Python model conversion / quantization tools (x86_64 PC only)
rknn/rknn3-model-zoo/Official pre-built reference models
examples/Application samples
scripts/Build scripts
package/Pre-built debs / image artifacts
docs/Release Note and other documents
ls $SDK_DIR/examples/

Output:

anomaly-detection  gstreamer  vi_yolo_venc
docker             rockit_yolo_detect  web

4. Verify Success

① Toolchain Works

The host (board side) is aarch64; verify with the native gcc:

gcc --version | head -2

Output:

gcc (Debian 12.2.0-14+deb12u1) 12.2.0
Copyright (C) 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

② PCIe Device Visible on the Host

/usr/bin/pcie_upgrade_tool ld 2>&1 | sed 's/\x1b\[[0-9;]*m//g'

Output (example):

Program directory: /usr/bin/
List of connected rkep devices
Addr=0004:41:00.0 [1d87:182a]

For the full health check script (one-shot 4-item verification), see ch01 Hardware Installation & Verification → One-Shot Health Check.

5. Troubleshooting

SymptomCauseFix
pcie_upgrade_tool command not foundHost-side SDK not installedReinstall the rknn3-runtime deb
Addr= list emptyPCIe not enumerated / card not seatedReseat the card + check for the 182a device with lspci
Daemon rknn3_transfer_proxy missingrknn3.service not startedsudo systemctl restart rknn3.service
Device is not in maskrom modeDevice running normallyNormal; no manual uf needed

6. Next Steps