Skip to main content

MAD

MAD is a fast binary serializer used within the Spine framework for compact, high-performance message encoding. Designed for low-latency communication between PreciCore modules over UDP.

Why MAD?​

JSON and other text-based formats introduce unnecessary overhead for real-time robotics systems. MAD encodes messages into compact binary format, minimizing packet size and serialization time — critical when Spine is routing control commands at sub-millisecond intervals.

Installation​

go get github.com/poisnoir/mad-go

Usage​

import "github.com/poisnoir/mad-go"

type ControlMsg struct {
    X, Y, Z float32
    Buttons  uint8
}

// Encode to bytes
data, err := mad.Encode(ControlMsg{X: 1.0, Y: -0.5, Z: 0.0, Buttons: 0b0001})

// Decode from bytes
var msg ControlMsg
err = mad.Decode(data, &msg)

MAD is used internally by Spine whenever you call node.Publish() — you typically don't need to call it directly unless you're building a custom transport layer.

See also​