Developing motion control software in Rust should be easy! Flott aims to make this a reality, by providing libraries that abstract over hardware commonly used for motion control, like motors, encoders, and other sensors and actuators.
Libraries
It's still early days for Flott, and work to build up the ecosystem is ongoing. So far, the following libraries are available:
Long-term, Flott aims to become a comprehensive toolkit that covers all common motion control needs.
Applications
While Flott is focused on building up infrastructure, applications that demonstrate and assist in testing that infrastructure are also within scope. So far, one application exists:
- Stepper Terminal - Manual Testing Tool for Stepper
Vision
The development of Flott is guided by the following principles:
- Open source, permissive license: Whether you use Flott for a hobby project or something you are going to sell, there won't be any legal restrictions standing in your way.
- Open community: Everyone is welcome to contribute to Flott. Its creator accepts funding and wants to work on it full-time, but the project's policy is to promote all project maintainers that want to do this.
- Portable: If you want to position a tool at specific coordinates, then write code to do just that. Whether using stepper or linear motors, open- or closed-loop control, a gantry mill or a delta robot; your code stays the same. Write your code once, and adapt to changes in the hardware by re-arranging and re-configuring the building blocks provided by Flott.
- Flexible: Replace the code that generates acceleration ramps with your own implementation, or reach down to access the unique features of a specific stepper driver. Whenever you need to leave the beaten path, Flott won't stand in your way.
- Portable, again: Flott is designed to run on microcontrollers, with little to no overhead. But the abstract interfaces it builds on can be implemented for all kinds of platforms, large or small.
Funding
If you're getting value out of Flott, please consider supporting us financially. Your sponsorship helps to keep the project healthy and moving forward.
Hanno Braun, the creator of Flott, is accepting sponsorship.