How to Set Up Arducam Pico4ML on macOS

Arducam Pico4ML, a Raspberry Pi Pico with extensions

The Arducam Pico4ML is a Raspberry Pi Pico with extensions. It runs an Arm Cortex-M0+ microprocessor. This means that any setup for the Raspberry Pi will build code that runs on the Pico4ML. However, the Pico4ML has extra components on it. These are:

• Inertial Measurement Unit: ICM-20948

• Mono channel microphone with direct PCM output

• Camera module: HiMax HM01B0

• Screen: 0.96 inch LCD SPI Display

• Bluetooth module

Set Up for Raspberry Pi Pico

Follow the instructions in this post. At the end of the exercise, you should have an environment variable named PICO_SDK_PATH.

Fetch the Repo

Proceed as follows:

1. Open the terminal

2. Change location to a suitable folder

3. Create a folder for pico4ml

4. Change into that folder

5. Fetch the repo using the following command

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ArduCam/pico-tflmicro.git
cd pico-tflmicro
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..

The above commands should run without any errors. At this point, you are ready to run the next command.

make

This takes a little bit of time to run. When it completes, you will find new folders and files in the build folder. For example, the image below shows the build files for the micro_speech example.

Arducam Pico4ML build output

At this point, you are ready to flash your Arducam Pico4Ml with any of the .uf2 examples. To do this, you need to get the pico into BOOTSEL mode.

BOOTSEL

Follow these steps to get the pico4ml into BOOTSEL mode:

1. Plug one end of the supplied cable into your computer

2. Plug the other end into the pico4ml

3. Hold down the BOOT button

4. Switch on the cable

5. Wait a few seconds for the board to appear as a drive on your computer

6. Release the BOOT button

Once the board appears as a drive, you can copy any .uf2 file over to the drive. The board will reboot after copying.

Go ahead and try out any of the examples that you have compiled.