Connection Arduino on Google Colab

Question

I have tried to connect Arduino Uno to Python code on Colaboratory, to send information to the Arduino using Pysireal library, but I didn't success, I kept reserve this Error on Colab: " SerialException: [Errno 2] could not open port COM5: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'COM5' " I'm sure that this port is connected, but Colab can't find the port because it’s on local environment. What can I do to solve this Error ?? is there any way that can I connect my Arduino to Google Colab ?
Hakam Salti. Thanks.

Answer 1

The Colab instance is connected to computer on the Google cloud (unless you've set up a local instance): the code doesn't execute on your machine, your typing code into a web interface that remotely runs that code, returns the result and it gets displayed back on that interface.

The Arduino is connected to your computer (a PC by the looks of the serial port).

Your question doesn't specify which way the data goes: send Arduino data to Colab, send Colab data to Arduino or bidirectional.

If you had a WIFI connected microcontroller, you could push the data online through an API, like Firebase

For USB, you'd need this sort of connection:

Arduino (OS/serial driver) <-> Browser <-> Colab

To connect the Arduino to the browser you'd need to use WebSerial or an app that has serial access that can also act as a web server (such as a WebSocket server). Since you're using Python for colab you can write a script on your PC that uses pyserial and a websocket server such as Tornado, Flask, etc. (p5.js does something like this with electron in JS and they have prebuilt apps)

The second part is getting that data which is now available to your browser, but locally, available to the Colab notebook. There are multiple ways of doing this, but this WebCam example looks like a good starting point.

Another variant of this might be:

1. Write a local script that acts as basic web server (http/websocket) and can access the serial port
2. make that local web server acessible from the internet (ngrok can help here)
3. access that websocket version from python (via a websocket client or http client pip package)