GPIO Control

The ARK Jetson PAB Carrier includes an I2S0 connector that can be reconfigured as general-purpose GPIOs using a device tree overlay.

I2S0 Connector Pin Mapping

ARK Pin	ARK Signal	40-Pin Header	Pinmux Name
1	VDD_5V_JPERIPH	-	-
2	I2S0_DOUT_3V3	Pin 40	I2S0_DOUT
3	I2S0_DIN_3V3	Pin 38	I2S0_DIN
4	I2S0_LRCLK_3V3	Pin 35	I2S0_FS
5	I2S0_SCLK_3V3	Pin 12	I2S0_SCLK
6	AUD_MCLK_3V3	Pin 7	GPIO09
7	GND	-	-

Enabling the GPIO Overlay

The I2S pins are configured for I2S audio by default. To use them as GPIOs, you need to apply the "ARK I2S to GPIO" overlay using jetson-io.

sudo /opt/nvidia/jetson-io/config-by-hardware.py -n "ARK I2S to GPIO"
sudo reboot

Using the GPIOs

After applying the overlay and rebooting, you can control the pins using the Jetson.GPIO Python library. The pins are addressed by their 40-pin header number.

import Jetson.GPIO as GPIO

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD)
GPIO.setup(40, GPIO.OUT)  # I2S0_DOUT as output
GPIO.setup(38, GPIO.IN)   # I2S0_DIN as input

GPIO.output(40, GPIO.HIGH)
value = GPIO.input(38)

GPIO.cleanup()

For a complete working example, see the i2s_gpio_example.py script in ARK-OS.

Creating Custom Overlays

To create your own overlay for different pins, refer to the annotated example overlay in the ark_jetson_kernel repository.

The overlay file contains documentation explaining how to:

1. Find your connector's signals in the carrier board schematic

2. Map signals to 40-pin header pins using the Jetson Pinmux Spreadsheet

3. Look up SoC GPIO names in the GPIO header file

4. Configure pin properties (tristate, input enable, pull resistors)

For more information on Jetson device tree overlays, see the NVIDIA Jetson-IO Documentation.

GPIO State Not Retained After Script Exit

When using libgpiod (which Jetson.GPIO uses internally), GPIO lines are released when your script or process exits. Once released, the pins revert to their default state (typically input mode). This is standard Linux character device behavior, not a bug.

If you need to maintain GPIO state persistently, your application must continue running. For command-line tools like gpioset, use the --mode=wait or --mode=signal flags to keep the process alive.

For more technical details, see the libgpiod persistent state discussion and the gpioset documentation.