controlpad

A cross-platform Python library for integrating game controllers into robotics, drone, and edge computing projects.

from controlpad import Gamepad

gp = Gamepad()

@gp.on_axis("left_x", "left_y")
def on_left_stick(x, y):
    robot.set_velocity(x, y)

@gp.on_button_press("cross")
def on_cross():
    robot.jump()

gp.run()

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Features

• Event-driven or polling — use decorator callbacks for clean application code, or poll in your own loop
• Named axes and buttons — state.axis("left_x") instead of joystick.get_axis(0)
• Built-in profiles — DualSense and Xbox out of the box; custom profiles in a few lines
• Auto-detection — profile is selected automatically from the controller's name string
• Radial deadzone — circular 2D deadzone for sticks, not a square
• Expo curves — standard RC-style centre softening for precise control
• Smoothing — configurable EMA low-pass filter to reduce stick jitter
• Auto-reconnect — survives USB wobbles and Bluetooth drops without crashing your application
• Headless Linux support — evdev backend requires no display, works inside ROS nodes and Docker containers
• CLI tools — controlpad detect, controlpad monitor for quick diagnostics
• Session recording & playback — record live controller input to JSON and replay it without hardware; ideal for testing and simulation

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Installation

pip install controlpad

For headless Linux (Raspberry Pi, ROS, Docker — no display required):

pip install "controlpad[evdev]"

To check the installed version:

import controlpad
print(controlpad.__version__)   # e.g. "0.2.0"

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Quick start

Polling

import time
from controlpad import Gamepad

gp = Gamepad(deadzone=0.08)
gp.connect()

while True:
    state = gp.read()
    print(state.axis("left_x"), state.axis("left_y"))
    print(state.button("cross"))
    print(state.dpad)          # (-1, 0), (0, 1), etc.
    time.sleep(1 / 60)

Event-driven

from controlpad import Gamepad

gp = Gamepad(deadzone=0.08, expo=0.15)

@gp.on_axis("left_x", "left_y")
def on_left_stick(x, y):
    drone.set_velocity(x, y)

@gp.on_axis("r2")           # Trigger: 0.0 → 1.0
def on_throttle(value):
    drone.set_throttle(value)

@gp.on_button_press("triangle")
def take_off():
    drone.take_off()

@gp.on_button_press("cross")
def land():
    drone.land()

@gp.on_disconnect()
def emergency():
    drone.disarm()

gp.run()

Background thread

gp = Gamepad()
thread = gp.run_async()   # Non-blocking — returns immediately

# Your main application continues here
do_other_things()

gp.stop()
thread.join()

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Configuration

All options are passed to Gamepad():

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
profile	str or ControllerProfile	None	Profile name or instance. None = auto-detect
index	int	0	Which controller to open if multiple are connected
deadzone	float	0.05	Stick deadzone radius [0, 1)
expo	float	0.0	Expo curve strength [0, 1). 0 = linear
smoothing	float	1.0	EMA alpha (0, 1]. Lower = smoother. 1.0 = off
backend	str	"auto"	"auto", "pygame", or "evdev"
headless	bool	False	Force SDL dummy video — no display required
reconnect	bool	True	Auto-reconnect when controller is lost
poll_rate	int	60	Polling frequency in Hz for run()

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Recording & Playback

controlpad can record a live controller session to a JSON file and replay it later — with no hardware required. This is useful for:

• Repeatable testing — record a manoeuvre once; replay it in your test suite on any machine
• Simulation — feed pre-recorded input into your application without a physical controller
• Debugging — replay an exact input sequence that triggered a bug

Recording

from controlpad import Gamepad

gp = Gamepad(deadzone=0.08)

@gp.on_button_press("options")
def stop():
    gp.stop()

gp.connect()
gp.start_recording()
gp.run()                          # fly/drive manually

session = gp.stop_recording()
session.save("patrol_route.json")

print(f"Recorded {session.snapshot_count} snapshots over {session.duration:.2f}s")

Replaying (no hardware needed)

from controlpad import Gamepad
from controlpad.session import Session

session = Session.load("patrol_route.json")

gp = Gamepad(profile=session.profile_name, deadzone=0.08)

@gp.on_axis("left_x", "left_y")
def steer(x, y):
    drone.set_velocity(x, y)

@gp.on_button_press("cross")
def land():
    drone.land()

gp.playback(session)              # replays at real-time speed by default

Playback options

# Real-time (default)
gp.playback(session, speed=1.0)

# Double speed
gp.playback(session, speed=2.0)

# Instantaneous — all snapshots delivered with no sleeping (ideal for tests)
gp.playback(session, speed=0)

# Override the profile regardless of what was recorded
gp.playback(session, speed=0, profile="xbox")

# Non-blocking — runs in a background thread
thread = gp.playback_async(session, speed=1.0)
thread.join()

Using sessions as test fixtures

speed=0 makes playback instantaneous, so a 30-second recording replays in milliseconds. This makes it practical to use recorded sessions as test fixtures in a normal pytest suite — no controller hardware required on the CI machine.

from controlpad import Gamepad
from controlpad.session import Session

def test_drone_lands_on_cross_press():
    session = Session.load("tests/fixtures/cross_press.json")

    gp = Gamepad(profile="dualsense")
    landed = []

    @gp.on_button_press("cross")
    def on_cross():
        landed.append(True)

    gp.playback(session, speed=0)

    assert len(landed) == 1

Session file format

Sessions are saved as human-readable JSON and are diff-friendly in version control. Each snapshot occupies one logical entry in the snapshots array:

{
  "format_version": "1",
  "controller_name": "DualSense Wireless Controller",
  "profile_name": "dualsense",
  "recorded_at": "2026-04-08T10:30:00+00:00",
  "duration": 5.0167,
  "snapshot_count": 301,
  "snapshots": [
    {"t": 0.0,    "axes": [0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0], "buttons": [false, ...], "hats": [[0, 0]]},
    {"t": 0.0167, "axes": [0.12, -0.05, -1.0, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0], "buttons": [false, ...], "hats": [[0, 0]]}
  ]
}

Raw hardware values are stored before any profile mapping, deadzone, or filtering — so you can replay a recording through a differently-configured Gamepad and see how your application would have behaved with different settings.

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Custom profiles

If your controller is not auto-detected, define your own profile using controlpad detect to find the raw axis indices first:

controlpad detect

Then define and register the profile:

from controlpad import Gamepad, ControllerProfile, register_profile

my_stick = ControllerProfile(
    name="MyJoystick",
    axis_map={
        "x":        0,
        "y":        1,
        "throttle": 2,
        "twist":    3,
    },
    button_map={
        "trigger": 0,
        "thumb":   1,
    },
    invert_axes={"y"},
    trigger_axes={"throttle"},
)

register_profile(my_stick)

gp = Gamepad(profile="myjoystick")

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CLI tools

# Identify your controller and print its full axis/button mapping
controlpad detect

# List all built-in profiles
controlpad list

# Live axis/button stream in the terminal (no display needed)
controlpad monitor
controlpad monitor --rate 50 --deadzone 0.08

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Examples

The examples/ directory contains ready-to-run scripts:

File	What it shows
basic_polling.py	Manual polling loop
event_driven.py	Decorator-based callbacks
drone_control.py	Full drone input mapping
custom_profile.py	Registering a custom controller layout
recording_playback.py	Recording a session to JSON and replaying it without hardware

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Headless / Raspberry Pi

On a Raspberry Pi running headless (no desktop), use either:

# Option 1: headless flag
gp = Gamepad(headless=True)

# Option 2: evdev backend (no pygame, no SDL)
gp = Gamepad(backend="evdev")

# Option 3: environment variable before import
export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=dummy
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dummy
python your_script.py

The evdev backend requires pip install "controlpad[evdev]" and the user to be in the input group:

sudo usermod -aG input $USER

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Supported controllers

Controller	Profile name	Tested on
Sony DualSense (CFI-ZCT1W / CFI-ZCT1G)	dualsense	Raspberry Pi 5 (Linux), macOS 14
Xbox One / Series X|S	xbox	Linux (xpadneo), macOS
Any HID gamepad	generic (auto-fallback)	Access axes as axis_0, axis_1, …

Contributions for other controllers are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.

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Development setup

Clone the repo and install in editable mode. The -e flag is important — it registers the package with local metadata so controlpad.__version__ resolves correctly when running from source.

git clone https://github.com/ranaweerasupun/controlpad.git
cd controlpad
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Run the tests — no controller hardware required, the test suite uses a mock backend:

pytest

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Author

Supun Sriyananda — github.com/ranaweerasupun