Book Image

Learn Robotics Programming

By : Danny Staple
Book Image

Learn Robotics Programming

By: Danny Staple

Overview of this book

We live in an age where the most difficult human tasks are now automated. Smart and intelligent robots, which will perform different tasks precisely and efficiently, are the requirement of the hour. A combination of Raspberry Pi and Python works perfectly when making these kinds of robots. Learn Robotics Programming starts by introducing you to the basic structure of a robot, along with how to plan, build, and program it. As you make your way through the book, you will gradually progress to adding different outputs and sensors, learning new building skills, and writing code for interesting behaviors with sensors. You’ll also be able to update your robot, and set up web, phone, and Wi-Fi connectivity in order to control it. By the end of the book, you will have built a clever robot that can perform basic artificial intelligence (AI) operations.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)

Powering the robot

The robot needs power for all its parts. There are two major power systems that need to be considered: the power for all the digital parts, such as the Raspberry Pi and sensors, and then the power for the motors.

Motors need their own power system for a few reasons. First, they consume far more electrical power than most other components on the robot. They may require different voltages; it's not uncommon to have low voltage and high current capacity supplies for motors. The other reason that they need their own power system is that they can cause interference. They can pull enough power that other circuitry has brownouts and loses power long enough to get into an inconsistent or reset state, which would lead to SD card corruption on a Pi, and they can also introduce electrical noise to a power line as they are used, which could cause digital parts to misbehave...