Firmata : Towards Making Microcontrollers Act Like Extensions Of The Computer

Abstract

Firmata is a generic protocol for communicating with microcontrollers from software on a host computer. The central goal is to make the microcontroller an extension of theprogramming environment on the host computer in a manner that feels natural in that programming environment. Itwas designed to be open and flexible so that any programming environment can support it, and simple to implementboth on the microcontroller and the host computer to ensurea wide range of implementations. The current reference implementation is a library for Arduino/Wiring and is includedwith Arduino software package since version 0012. Thereare matching software modules for a number of languages,like Pd, OpenFrameworks, Max/MSP, and Processing.