Book Image

BeagleBone Robotic Projects

By : Richard Grimmett
Book Image

BeagleBone Robotic Projects

By: Richard Grimmett

Overview of this book

Thanks to new, inexpensive microcontrollers, robotics has become far more accessible than it was in the past. These microcontrollers provide a whole new set of capabilities to allow even the most inexperienced users to make amazingly complicated projects. Beaglebone is effectively a small, light, cheap computer in a similar vein to Raspberry Pi and Arduino. It has all of the extensibility of today's desktop machines, but without the bulk, expense, or noise. This project guide provides step-by-step instructions to allow anyone to use this new, low cost platform in some fascinating robotics projects. By the time you are finished, your projects will be able to see, speak, listen, detect their surroundings, and move in a variety of amazing ways. The book begins with unpacking and powering up the components.This will include guidance on what to purchase and how to connect it all successfully–and a primer on programming the BeagleBone Black. Chapter by chapter, we will add additional software functionality available from the open source community, including how to make the system see using a webcam, how to hear using a microphone, and how to speak using a speaker. We then add hardware to make your robots move–including wheeled and legged examples–as well as covering how to add sonar sensors to avoid or find objects, plus wireless control to make your robot truly autonomous. Adding GPS allows the robot to find itself. Finally the book covers how to integrate all of this functionality so that it can all work together, before developing the most impressive robotics projects: those that can sail, fly, and explore underwater.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
BeagleBone Robotic Projects
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Basic Linux commands and navigating the filesystem


After completing Chapter 1, Getting Started with the BeagleBone Black, you should have a working BeagleBone Black running a version of Linux called Ubuntu. We selected this distribution because it is the most popular and has the largest set of supported hardware and software. The commands I am going to review should also work with other versions of Linux, but I'll be showing examples using Ubuntu.

Prepare for lift off

So, power up your BeagleBone Black and log in using the proper username and password. If you are going to log in remotely, go ahead and establish the connection and log in. Now we will take a quick tour of Linux. This will not be extensive, but we will walk through some of the basic commands.

Engage thrusters

Once you have logged in, you should open up a terminal window. If you are logging in using a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, or using vncserver, you'll find the terminal selection by selecting the Applications Menu in the upper...