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title: “Athera Motion Core — Custom RP2350 Dev Board” date: 2026-08-01

🎛️ Athera Motion Core — RP2350 Development Board

Hardware Line: Athera Controls (Physical PCB engineering & schematics)
Parent Brand: Pyintel (Open-source cognitive & developer ecosystem)
Target MCU: Raspberry Pi RP2350 (Dual ARM Cortex-M33 / RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz)
Firmware / Integration: Apex OS — Apex Arc Auto-Discovery Harness

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📐 1. Hardware Target Specifications

Subsystem	Specification
MCU & Memory	RP2350 MCU with 16 MB QSPI Flash + external PSRAM footprint
Power Management	Hardened 7 V–24 V DC wide-input buck regulator (LiPo / Automotive ready)
Bus Communications	Onboard high-speed CAN Transceiver (CAN-FD / CAN 2.0)
Actuation & Output	4× onboard high-current MOSFET channels with screw terminals (12 V / 24 V load support)
Sensor Connectivity	Dual quadrature encoder inputs + Qwiic / STEMMA QT I²C connector
Auto-Discovery Manifest	Onboard I²C EEPROM storing hardware pin maps and feature capabilities

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🧩 2. GPIO Pinout Matrix (RP2350)

All encoder pins are PIO-assigned to preserve ARM-side PWM/timer resources.

GPIO	Function	Block	Direction	Notes
0	CAN_TX	CAN-FD	OUT	Transceiver TXD line
1	CAN_RX	CAN-FD	IN	Transceiver RXD line
2	CAN_SHDN	CAN-FD	OUT	Standby/shutdown control
4	I2C0_SDA	EEPROM I²C	IOD	Bus I²C0 — Auto-discovery EEPROM
5	I2C0_SCL	EEPROM I²C	IOD	Bus I²C0 — Auto-discovery EEPROM
6..9	MOSFET_GATE_1..4	Actuation	OUT	High-current channel gates
10,11	ENC1_A, ENC1_B	Encoder 1	IN (PIO)	PIO0 SM0 quadrature decode
12,13	ENC2_A, ENC2_B	Encoder 2	IN (PIO)	PIO0 SM1 quadrature decode
14,15	I2C1_SDA, I2C1_SCL	Qwiic / STEMMA	IOD	Bus I²C1 — External sensors

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📡 3. Auto-Discovery EEPROM Manifest Schema (manifest.json)

Stored on the onboard I²C EEPROM (0x50 on bus I2C0). Apex Arc reads this over USB/UART during bring-up to identify the board, enumerate its peripherals, and load the correct driver class without manual configuration.

{
  "manifest_version": "1.0.0",
  "vendor": "Pyintel",
  "product_line": "Athera Controls",
  "board_name": "Athera Motion Core",
  "board_id": "AMC-RP2350-V1.0",
  "mcu": {
    "target": "RP2350",
    "arch": "Dual ARM Cortex-M33 / RISC-V Hazard3",
    "clock_mhz": 150,
    "flash_size_mb": 16
  },
  "peripherals": {
    "can_bus": {
      "transceiver": "High-Speed CAN-FD / CAN 2.0",
      "tx_pin": 0,
      "rx_pin": 1
    },
    "mosfet_channels": [
      { "channel_id": 1, "gate_pin": 6, "max_voltage": "24V" },
      { "channel_id": 2, "gate_pin": 7, "max_voltage": "24V" }
    ],
    "encoders": [
      { "encoder_id": 1, "pin_a": 10, "pin_b": 11, "mode": "PIO Quadrature (PIO0 SM0)" }
    ]
  }
}

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📄 4. Open-Source Licensing

Asset	License	Rationale
Hardware (schematics, PCB, BOM, Gerbers)	CERN-OHL-S v2	Permissive reciprocal OSHW license — allows commercial use with design-back requirement.
Firmware / BSP (apex-bsp-rp2350)	MIT	Maximally permissive for easy adoption.
Auto-Discovery Schema (manifest.json)	CC0 1.0 (Public Domain)	Unencumbered protocol standard.