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Rust Robot

Async robot firmware for Waveshare Pico2Go (RP2350-Plus) in Embedded Rust with Embassy; leverages RP2350 for reliable motor control plus integrated IR remote support and robust capabilities.

Required Hardware

• Waveshare Pico2Go Mobile Robot (Amazon B0FFH15ZW4)

  • Mobile robot platform based on the RP2350-Plus microcontroller, compatible with Raspberry Pi Pico series.
  • Features: Self-driving, remote control, includes RP2350-Plus control board, rich Wiki resources, and expansion options.
  • Ideal for embedded robotics, motor control, and IR remote experiments.

• PAOWANG 14500 Rechargeable Battery 3.7V 2500mAh + Charger (Amazon B0CK1PWMTT)

  • 4-pack of 14500 lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (button top) with charger.
  • 3.7V, 2500mAh high capacity, suitable for powering the Pico2Go robot and similar embedded projects.
  • Rechargeable, long life, and includes charger for convenience.

🚀 Quick Start

# Put your RP2350 in BOOTSEL mode (hold button while plugging USB)
./quick-flash.sh

That's it! The script will build and flash automatically.

What's Included

• Motor Control: PWM-based speed control with direction pins
• NEC IR Protocol Decoder: Async IR remote receiver
• Embassy Async Runtime: Clean async/await implementation for RP2350

Hardware Pin Mapping

• PWMA: GPIO 16
• AIN2: GPIO 17
• AIN1: GPIO 18
• BIN1: GPIO 19
• BIN2: GPIO 20
• PWMB: GPIO 21
• IR Receiver: GPIO 5

Building

This project uses Embassy from git (main branch) since RP2350 support is very recent.

# Install the ARM Cortex-M33 target (already done if you followed setup)
rustup target add thumbv8m.main-none-eabihf

# Build
cargo build --release

Flashing to RP2350

Method 1: BOOTSEL Mode (Recommended)

Use the included flash script for devices in BOOTSEL mode:

# 1. Hold BOOTSEL button on RP2350 and plug in USB
# 2. Run the flash script
./quick-flash.sh

The script will:

• Build the release binary
• Convert ELF to UF2 format
• Flash using picotool (or copy to mounted volume)
• Auto-reset the device

Method 2: Manual UF2 Copy

cargo build --release

# Install elf2uf2-rs if not already installed
cargo install elf2uf2-rs --locked

# Convert to UF2
elf2uf2-rs target/thumbv8m.main-none-eabihf/release/robot-embassy \
           target/thumbv8m.main-none-eabihf/release/robot-embassy.uf2

# Copy to mounted RP2350 volume
cp target/thumbv8m.main-none-eabihf/release/robot-embassy.uf2 /Volumes/RP2350/

Method 3: Debug Probe (probe-rs)

If you have a debug probe connected:

# Install probe-rs
cargo install probe-rs-tools --locked

# Uncomment the runner line in .cargo/config.toml
# Then run:
cargo run --release

Dependencies Note

The Cargo.toml uses git dependencies for Embassy crates to get the latest RP2350 support.
Once RP2350 support is published to crates.io, you can switch to versioned dependencies.

Key Differences from C Version

1. Async/Await: IR decoding runs asynchronously using Embassy timers
2. Type Safety: Rust's type system prevents many common embedded bugs
3. No Blocking Loops: Uses embassy_time::with_timeout for clean timeout handling
4. PWM Abstraction: Higher-level PWM API from embassy-rp

IR Remote Commands

• 0x18: Forward
• 0x08: Left
• 0x1C: Stop
• 0x5A: Right
• 0x52: Backward
• 0x09: Reset speed to 50%
• 0x15: Increase speed
• 0x07: Decrease speed

Auto-stop after 800ms of no IR signal.

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License

MIT