Communicate to Android Device over USB

Question

I am developing an application on Am3352 based board which needs to communicate to an android device (tablet/phone) over USB. I need to exchange some custom data bytes (which will be understood only by my application and an application running in the android device) over USB.

When I connect the android tablet to my AM3352 board, I am getting prints on the console with VID PID etc which indicates that the device is getting detected. What I need to know is, how to make the kernel assign a dev file for the device. For example, when we connect a usb to serial converter we will get /dev/ttyUSBx file so that we can open it and write/read to this file. Similarly is it possible for direct usb connection?

I was expecting a /dev/ttyACMx device file to be generated so that I can write and read to it. The CDC/Modem support is enabled in kernel. (I am not sure if this will help but just tried it anyway).

Kindly let me know how I can get a device file name associated with the device so that I can read and write to it.

Answer 1

First you have to know what USB kind of your android device is. How this device is recognized on your linux box? As a mass-storage or CDC or anything else? Then you can try to communicate with it. And you don't have to create any device in /dev/ to communicate with android via USB. Take a look at libusb library.

In your example - /dev/ttyUSBx is created because kernel knows that this is communication device class. So you also need to know what kind of USB device is this android device.