Write Motherboard "Low Level" Code

[VladimirKupryukhin]

Context

We want to control stepper motors, pwm (servo motors), and lights from the Orin's ROS codebase. But these modules do not have any convenient USB that we can use. As such, we are making a PCB that will host these motor drivers. To interface between this PCB and the Orin will be a Raspberry Pi Pico Microcontroller through a MicroUSB-USB cable.

The ROS code must be able to interface with this board.

What to do

The node will be similar to the idea of the can_moteus, but for the motherboard. A JSON formatted String will be sent to the motherboard for it to process. The JSON contains information about what motors to move, to what position, which lights to turn on, and so on.

Development process

As this is a huge project, the development of this motherboard code will be split into two branches. One branch writes the code that runs on the Raspberry Pi Pico and the code that runs on the ROS code. The Pico code will be in this same codebase for accessibility reasons; checkout vlad/motherboard_mcu to see the current progress on the Pico code.