Looking for architecture advise because I think what I have could be a lot better. (Timers, second core, interrupts)

[paulbuzzby]

I have ported a code base from arduino c to micropython to run on the RP2040. The code is to run a robot micro mouse.

The high level architecture looks like

I have a main code loop that sets up what the robot does and at certain points waits for moves to be finished.

There is an update loop that executes 200 times a second via a timer using the following line

systick = Timer()
systick.init(mode=Timer.PERIODIC, freq=200, callback=Update)

I also have DC motors with encoders on the robot and am using the quadrature_encoder code to get encoder pulses from each motor.
The encoder counts works very well and I think this is not handled by the CPU at all.

Technically this all seems to work. I have no thread-specific code and I don't know how the timer interacts with code executing in the main loop beyond that it does work

My question(s).

Should I be using some sort of thread framework for any of these and if so what examples can you point me to?
Can I get any of this to run on the second RP2040 core that is available? I believe this all works on a single core for now

What other approach might I be missing as the "correct" micropython way to run this sort of thing?

My main focus here is speed of execution and anything i need to do to make sure I don't get code clashes, memory issues or leaks.

Thanks

Paul

[omeErik]

hi paul, i had similar question(s) while ago when i started with micropython on esp32 and 8266. eventually, i started using asyncio and i have found this to work nicely for me. the async approach offers a structured way to set up and handle tasks, more so than fiddling around with timers. the asyncio tutorials from peterhinch were perfect to get the hang of it. of course i cannot tell if this is applicable to your case, although i do similar things: read sensors, perform tasks. monitoring performance with an logic analyser, ms response times are certainly doable. hope this helps - erik