Arduino

Arduino in RIOT. More...

Detailed Description

Arduino in RIOT.

About

This module enables users to run unmodified Arduino sketches in RIOT. For this we aim at supporting the full Arduino API.

The support of the Arduino API in RIOT is useful for multiple reasons:

• starting point for beginners
• run your existing sketches on any non-Arduino hardware supported by RIOT
• makes it easy to move from Arduino to RIOT
• use Arduino device drivers in RIOT
• is fun to implement :-)

Refer to Arduino API for the actual API documentation

General usage

To run your Arduino sketch in RIOT, just follow these steps:

1. create an empty application
2. add the arduino module to your application, your Makefile should now look something like this:

   APPLICATION = YOUR_APP_NAME
   BOARD ?= YOUR_TARGET_PLATFORM
   RIOTBASE ?= PATH_TO_RIOT_ROOT
    
   USEMODULE += arduino
    
   include $(RIOTBASE)/Makefile.include

3. copy your Arduino sktech(es) into your application folder. Currently they must have the file ending *.sketch to be processed.
4. build, flash, and run your application the usual RIOT-way: simply call make all, make flash, make term, etc.

That's all. As bonus you can of course use any existing RIOT code inside your Arduino sketches - you simply have to add the includes to your sketch and the corresponding modules to your Makefile.

Note

So far, all Arduino sketches MUST have the file ending *.sketch to be recognized by RIOT's build system

Concept

For enabling RIOT to run Arduino sketches, we extended the build system to handle *.sketch files and we implemented the Arduino API using RIOT's native functions.

Extension of the build system

Building Arduino sketches in RIOT is done in a three step process.

First, the make system defines a generated arduino_sketches module placed into $(BINDIR) Arduino sketches makefile, which is included from the Makefile.include of the RIOT Arduino module. The generated module is added to used modules and build directories.

Second, as prerequisites for the link target, the make system will create the module into $(BINDIR)/arduino_sketches with an arduino_sketches.cpp source file. Into this file, it copies some Arduino glue code ( pre.snip and post.snip) together with the contents of all *.sketch files contained in the application folder.

Third, the RIOT make system is called as usual, building the generated library with the Arduino code and including it in the final firmware.

Implementation of the Arduino API

For supporting the Arduino API, we have created our own function and class definitions, using the exact same signatures as in the original Arduino header files. These headers are then implemented using standard RIOT APIs, e.g. the peripheral drivers, xtimer, etc.

Add Arduino support to a board

Note

As prerequisite, the board must have support for C++. Support for the standard C++ lib (feature libstdcpp) is not required.

As a minimum requirement, the features arduino_pins is a hard dependency. See Digital Pins what a board needs to provide this.

Additional mappings for analog pins (see Analog Pins) and PWM pins (see PWM Pins) is required to be able to use analogRead() and analogWrite().

See also IO-Mapping and Shields on how a board can provide more I/O mappings and even declare electrical and mechanical compatibility with common Arduino form factors.

Open issues

Todo:

Make it possible to bootstrap Arduino code manually from any RIOT application. Include a pseudomule as e.g. arduino_base, which does not implement a main function calling setup() and loop(), so these functions have to be called manually from a RIOT application.

Implement analog outputs (PWM mapping)

Implement analog inputs (ADC mapping)

Add means to include various Arduino Libraries (maybe as pkg?)

Implement anything else that is missing...

Adapt Arduino build script, so sketches do not have to have the file ending *.sketch anymore

Modules
	Arduino API
	Implementation of the Arduino API in RIOT.

Files
file	Arduino.h
	Wrapper to keep source code compatibility for Arduino.h.
file	arduino_board.h
	Configuration of the Arduino API for Arduino Atmega boards.
file	arduino_board_analog.h
	Arduino analog pin map.
file	arduino_board_pins.h
	Arduino digital pin map.
file	arduino_board_pwm.h
	Mapping of Arduino digital pin numbers to PWM settings.
file	SPI.h
	Wrapper to access the definition of the Arduino 'SPI' interface.
file	Wire.h
	Wrapper to keep source code compatibility for Wire.h.