micro_ros_arduino VS rclpy

As far as micro controllers go, it's possible to implement a ROS node on both a raspi pico and arduino that allows them to share data with higher level nodes. That said, these specific implementations are a feature of ROS2. Previously, under the the original ROS, microcontrollers were more treated as 2nd class citizens and relied on a rosserial interface node to communicate with the full network.

I recommend using the Arduino library for Micro-ROS. https://github.com/micro-ROS/micro_ros_arduino

MicroROS is a project to implement a complete ROS2 node in your microcontrollers. The experimental MicroROS Arduino branch extends Arduino programs with additional C/C++ headers for full ROS2 compatible message subscription and publication. Specifically, its provides as precompiled binaries that support specific Microcontrollers such as the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect or the Teensy 4.1. The list of natively supported ROS messages is impressive.

Hint: You may get some ideas on how everything works from https://github.com/micro-ROS/micro_ros_arduino/blob/foxy/extras/library_generation/library_generation.sh

However, I don't see a pip package for rclpy, etc. What is going on? https://github.com/ros2/rclpy says we need to build the package ourselves. Is this correct or outdated documentation?

This module depends both on IoTHubModuleClient and rclypy(ROS Client Library for Python). You cannot run this module locally without ROS2 environment setup or iotedgehubdev.

If you're running ROS2, you need to migrate to `rclpy` https://github.com/ros2/rclpy

Alternatively, you can use the default client libraries like rclpy or rclcpp for writing custom code that reads and writes ROS2 messages.