Example of an Arduino library usage in a Rust project

The project tested with Arduino UNO on Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS.
It demonstrates the usage of LiquidCrystal_I2C with rust project to control I2C Text Display from Rust. It also shows how to combine it with existing Arduino rust crates. arduino_hal crate is used to blink the LED.

This is the source code for Five simple steps to use any Arduino C++ library in a Rust project 🦀. Demo video.

Project setup

• Install curl to install rust by rustup and other prerequisites

sudo apt install curl git libudev-dev libclang-dev

• Install avr toolchain and avrdude

sudo apt install gcc avrdude gcc-avr avr-libc

• Install dependencies to compile ravedude

sudo apt install systemd-dev pkg-config

• Install bindgen dependencies:

sudo apt install libudev-dev libclang-dev

• Install Rust (& Cargo)

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

• Install ravedude:

cargo install ravedude

• Install arduino IDE and validate it is working by compiling a simple sketch.
• Install LiquidCrystal_I2C library to Arduino Libraries folder (manually or using Arduino IDE like you would normally do)
• Edit arduino.yaml to configure your arduino installation and version of core library
• Ensure to have rustfmt installed

rustup component add rustfmt

• Plug in your Arduino UNO and run the project:

cargo run

If you see the following error

> avrdude: ser_open(): can't open device "/dev/ttyACM0": Permission denied

then try editing the permission or adding you user to dialout group (require re-login):

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyACM0
sudo usermod -aG dialout $USER

Windows

If you are running on Windows, consider different way of system dependencies installation.

• Instead of install avr tools using dnf, locate them in your Arduino IDE installation and add the folders containing avr-gcc and avrdude to the PATH. I had to add the following:
  • %LOCALAPPDATA%\Arduino15\packages\arduino\tools\avr-gcc\7.3.0-atmel3.6.1-arduino7\bin\
  • %LOCALAPPDATA%\Arduino15\packages\arduino\tools\avrdude\6.3.0-arduino17\bin\
• Ensure avr-gcc and avrdude are found.
• Download and install clang for Windows here
• Setup LIBCLANG_PATH to point to <CLANG_INSTALL_DIR>\bin
• Setup AR to point to %LIBCLANG_PATH%\llvm-ar.exe
• Don't forget to update arduino.yaml with correct paths.
• cargo build and cargo run should work now!