Raspberry Pi Pico Hybrid HID Controller

Abstract: This paper presents the complete design, hardware implementation, and firmware development of a low-cost, multi-mode USB Human Interface Device (HID) controller built around the Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2040) microcontroller. The proposed system integrates a dual-axis analog joystick HW-504 and eleven programmable tactile buttons into a single platform capable of simultaneously emulating both a USB keyboard and a USB mouse without requiring any custom driver installation on the host system. The controller is implemented using the TinyUSB stack via the Pico C++ SDK and communicates over USB Full-Speed using standard HID class descriptors. Hardware was iteratively refined across three breadboard revisions, with Version 3 representing the most stable configuration. The system was successfully demonstrated and validated on Windows 11 with commercial game titles including Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 1, and was exhibited at the college Techfest. This work demonstrates that a sub-$5 microcontroller platform can implement a fully functional, re-programmable dual-mode HID peripheral suitable for gaming, desktop productivity, robotics teleoperation, and custom human-computer interaction.

Keywords: Raspberry Pi Pico, RP2040, USB HID, TinyUSB, analog joystick, embedded systems, HID composite device, C++ SDK, game controller, KiCad 9.0.