Advanced Debugger for Arduino

Abstract

This article describes improved version of our source-level debugger for Arduino. The debugger can be used to debug Arduino programs using GNU debugger GDB with Eclipse or Visual Studio Code as the visual front-end. It supports all the functionally expected from a debugger such as stepping through the code, setting breakpoints, or viewing and modifying variables. These features are otherwise not available for the popular AVR-based Arduino boards without an external debug probe and modification of the board. With the presented debugger it is only needed to add a program library to the user program and optionally replace the bootloader. The debugger can speed up program development and make the Arduino platform even more usable as a tool for controlling various experimental apparatus or teaching computer programming. The article focuses on the new features and improvements we made in the debugger since its introduction in 2016. The most important improvement over the old version is the support for inserting breakpoints into program memory which allows debugging without affecting the speed of the debugged program and inserting breakpoints into interrupt service routines. Further enhancements include loading the program via the debugger and newly added support for Arduino Mega boards.