Rust <3's Embedded

As a note, this will be the first in a series of posts exploring content I will be presenting to the Rust DC group on June 15th, where I will be integrating Rust code on the nRF52 Development Kit to create a Rust-Powered Bluetooth Peripheral. See the meetup event for more information. This post will serve as the first introduction to a few topics, and I will be building on this information as I later discuss exact techniques that can be used to get Rust on more and more embedded systems. In general, I will be focusing on integrating Rust into existing C and C++ ecosystems, to reduce the barrier to entry for Embedded Rust Developers.

Embedded CI Post Update

A quick note: I've added a section for "Native" Testing in my previous post regarding CI Testing Techniques for Embedded Systems. Its definitely an important technique that I should have mentioned from the start! Check it out here, and let me know if there are any other techniques that I missed. Thanks to Ludwig Knüpfer for bringing it to my attention.

CI for Embedded Systems

I was wondering what solutions exist for CI in the embedded space. I'm trying to streamline and speed up project development ... and feel CI might help in that process. I come from a higher level language background and have seen tools like TeamCity and Vagrant manage the build-test-deploy pipeline, and was wondering if this is a thing in the embedded world too.

• Vignesh Sankaran

I recently received this email after talking about CI (Continuous Integration) for Embedded Systems in an IRC room. After a quick response, I thought that the subject was worth posting about. I'll cover a couple different techniques I have used at different companies, and try to list the benefits, challenges, and a little bit of detail for each. This information is knowledge that I have gathered over my years developing and testing embedded systems, ranging from safety critical Avionics, all the way down to rapidly prototyped IoT devices.

Novation Launchpad Mk2 Rust API

For Christmas, my lovely wife got me a Novation Launchpad Mk2. These are billed as the "iconic grid performance instrument", and some day I hope to actually make some music with it. Until then, its a really cool 9x9 button grid with RGB LEDs. Pefect for playing around with!

Easier Rust Development on the PJRC Teensy 3

I've written a bit about embedded devices, and a bit about Rust in the past, but I wanted to share something I've been working on (wtih the help of some really smart people) for the last few weeks. Today I was able to publish a crate called teensy3, which contains most of the boilerplate necessary to get started using Rust on the Cortex M4 based PJRC Teensy 3.1 or 3.2, as well as (unsafe) Rust binding for the entire Teensyduino API/HAL. Additionally, we have a demo repository containing everything necessary to get started.