Intellar Engine is the central compute board for the Intellar robotics / character platform: an ESP32-S3 that drives round TFT “eyes”, an auxiliary flat display path, an OLED status strip, and satellite peripherals over a flat-flex (FFC) link. Bluetooth LE exposes telemetry and file-oriented control so a phone or a companion web dashboard can follow what the hardware is doing in real time.
This repository is the reference firmware: display bring-up (LovyanGFX), animation pipelines (strip assets on LittleFS), BLE services, touch surfaces (capacitive pads and, on the ILI9341 build, XPT2046 stylus input), and optional IMU / ToF integration. The code is organised for someone who wants to reproduce the stack, swap assets, or extend behaviours without starting from a blank Arduino sketch.
If that matches your hardware revision or your research, clone the tree, open it in PlatformIO, choose the environment that fits your panel configuration (gc9a01 vs ili9341), and flash. The sections below document layout, build targets, and where to adjust pins and touch mapping.
Note: Behaviour and pin assignments evolve with PCB revisions. When upgrading, confirm
platformio.iniandsrc/against your schematic before flashing.
| MCU | ESP32-S3, 8 MB flash, OPI PSRAM (board profile) |
| Displays | Dual GC9A01 round SPI panels, or ILI9341 + XPT2046 (separate PlatformIO target) |
| Human interface | SSD1306 OLED, capacitive touchpad (touchRead), BLE GATT + optional web dashboard |
| Sensors | IMU, ToF (optional / board-dependent) |
| Tooling | PlatformIO; asset helpers under tools/ |
If you want hardware that matches this repository—FFC layout, display options, and power path the firmware assumes—the Intellar Engine boards and kits are available from intellar.square.site. That is usually the fastest path from reading the code to a board you can flash with the documented gc9a01 / ili9341 targets, without reconciling a generic devkit against our pin map.
Long-form context (satellite boards, revisions, and field notes) stays on the Intellar blog; the store is the practical route when you are ready to build on real hardware rather than simulate it.
- Dual round GC9A01 displays (SPI), or a separate ILI9341 flat panel with XPT2046 resistive touch on the same SPI bus as the TFT (see
[env:ili9341]). - OLED (SSD1306), BLE GATT services, optional IMU / ToF, capacitive touchpad (ESP32
touchRead, not the ILI9341 stack).
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| MCU | ESP32-S3 (8 MB flash, OPI PSRAM as per board profile) |
| RF | Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE (Arduino BLE stack) |
| Interconnect | Flat-flex (FFC) to satellite boards |
| Power | USB-C; Li-ion/LiPo path with protected outputs (see hardware docs) |
| Path | Role |
|---|---|
data/ |
LittleFS assets (e.g. 240×240 strip binaries) |
src/Core/ |
Engine state, shared configuration |
src/Drivers/ |
LCD (LovyanGFX: GC9A01 or ILI9341 + XPT2046), OLED, Bluetooth |
src/Interface/ |
Eye animation, RobotEye, capacitive touchpad |
src/Sensors/ |
IMU, ToF |
tools/ |
Asset preparation (gui-image-tools.py, etc.) |
Open the project in VS Code with the PlatformIO extension, or use the CLI from the repository root.
| Environment | When to use |
|---|---|
gc9a01 |
Dual round GC9A01 (SCREEN_GC9A01_DUAL). No SPI XPT2046 profile in this target. |
ili9341 |
ILI9341 + XPT2046 (TOUCH_CS). Uses Panel_ILI9341. Do not flash this image on a round-only GC9 assembly. |
git clone https://github.com/intellar/Intellar-Engine.git
cd Intellar-Engine
pio run -e gc9a01 -t upload
pio run -e ili9341 -t upload
pio run -e gc9a01 -t uploadfs # LittleFS; use -e ili9341 if that is the active targetTouch inputs: BLE status and the companion dashboard distinguish (1) the capacitive touchpad from (2) the ILI9341 / XPT2046 coordinate stream. For the current ILI9341 PCB, the firmware applies a default X+Y mirror after getTouch(); overrides (ILI9341_TOUCH_*) are listed under [env:ili9341] in platformio.ini.
- Engine / satellite boards — blog
- Kits & boards — Intellar store (same link as Hardware kits above)