Firmware

The program burned into a hardware chip that directly controls a device's lowest-level behavior.

Firmware is a program stored in a device's non-volatile memory (such as flash), usually running on a microcontroller (MCU), handling the work closest to the hardware. On a robot, joint drivers, dexterous hands, IMUs, cameras, and the battery management system each have their own firmware — a driver's firmware, for instance, implements the current loop, the velocity loop, and over-current and over-temperature protection, while a camera's firmware handles exposure and depth computation. A higher-level ROS node or SDK is really just talking to this firmware over a bus. A firmware version mismatch is a common cause of communication errors or missing functionality, so checking and updating firmware is often the first step when setting up new hardware or debugging a problem; a whole robot can also often be updated remotely via OTA.

ExampleWhen a RealSense camera's depth output looks wrong, first check its firmware version with the official tool and update to the version the SDK recommends before testing further.

Related

Driver (Device Driver) · Over-the-Air (OTA) Update · Microcontroller Unit (MCU) · Embedded System · Servo Drive (Motor Driver) · Embedded Software Development

Sources

Firmware - Wikipedia