Book Image

BeagleBone Robotic Projects - Second Edition

By : Richard Grimmett
Book Image

BeagleBone Robotic Projects - Second Edition

By: Richard Grimmett

Overview of this book

BeagleBone Blue 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 that enable 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 includes guidance on what to purchase and how to connect it all successfully, and a primer on programming the BeagleBone Blue. You will add additional software functionality available from the open source community, including making the system see using a webcam, hear using a microphone, and speak using a speaker. You will then learn to use the new hardware capability of the BeagleBone Blue to make your robots move, as well as discover how to add sonar sensors to avoid or find objects. Later, you will learn to remotely control your robot through iOS and Android devices. At the end of this book, you will see how to integrate all of these functionalities to work together, before developing the most impressive robotics projects: Drone and Submarine.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Different types of sensors used


In this chapter, you'll need some sensors. There are three choices:

  • Sonar
  • LiDAR
  • Infrared

Let's take a brief look at each.

The sonar sensor

This type of sensor uses ultrasonic sound to calculate the distance to an object. The sensor consists of a transmitter and receiver. The transmitter creates a sound wave that travels out from the sensor, as illustrated in the following figure:

The device sends out a sound wave 10 times a second. If an object is in the path of these waves, then the waves reflect off the object. Then, this returns sound waves to the sensor, as shown in the following figure:

The sensor then measures any returning sound waves. It uses the time difference between when the sound wave was sent out and when it returns to measure the distance to the object. The advantages of the sonar sensor are that it is simple, inexpensive, and works well in all types of lighting. The disadvantages of this sensor are that it doesn't work well at longer distances and...