The G2 Nano Is a Powerful 1GHz Development Board

Just about any Arduino or Raspberry Pi Pico development board will get the job done if you are building a simple, hobbyist-grade robot. These user-friendly hardware platforms make the build process very simple. However, they cannot meet the requirements of more complex robotics systems, such as those found in industry. In these cases, engineers typically need to design custom hardware to power the robot.

Ryan Strace is an embedded systems engineer who recognized that many of these custom hardware designs are very similar. The main challenge is almost always coordinating the movement of multiple motors simultaneously. So, why should we reinvent the wheel each time? Strace thinks a better solution is to design a new development board that is as accessible as an Arduino, but as capable as a purpose-built robotics controller. He recently did just that, and the result is the G2 Nano development board.

Closed-loop control systems, such as PID controllers, are frequently used for precision motor control. Unfortunately, issues such as mechanical saturation, integrator windup, sensor noise, and phase delays can all hinder performance in real-world robotic systems. On top of that, robots frequently require smooth multi-axis motion interpolation with carefully managed acceleration profiles to avoid jerky movement or mechanical stress. Fault handling is another critical requirement, since unexpected states can physically damage expensive hardware.

To simplify all of this complexity, Strace is developing a custom low-cost motion control IC that will eventually abstract many of these functions away from developers. The G2 Nano serves as the high-performance development platform for that future chip.

The board is equipped with an NXP Arm Cortex-M7 processor running at 1 GHz, making it significantly faster than most development boards. Wireless connectivity is provided through the u-blox MAYA-W1 module, which supports dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The board also includes a six-axis inertial measurement unit featuring a three-axis accelerometer and three-axis gyroscope, along with a dedicated magnetometer for compass functionality and spatial awareness.

Measuring just 0.8 by 3 inches, the board was designed to fit onto standard breadboards and into larger robotic systems with minimal space requirements. Despite the tiny footprint, the PCB uses a sophisticated six-layer stackup with dedicated signal, power, and grounding layers to maintain signal integrity at high operating speeds.

On the software side, the G2 Nano is designed for native integration with micro-ROS and the Zephyr real-time operating system. Strace also plans to support MicroPython, allowing developers to rapidly prototype robotics applications using Python without suffering major performance penalties thanks to the processor’s unusually high clock speed.

All of the hardware design files and documentation for the G2 Nano are open-source and hosted publicly on GitHub.