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

Using the BeagleBone Black in flying robots


You've now built robots that can move around on a wheeled structure, and robots that have legs, and robots that can sail. You can also build robots that can fly, relying on the BeagleBone Black to control their flight. There are several possible ways to incorporate the BeagleBone Black into a flying robotic project, but the most straightforward way is to add it to a quadcopter project.

Quadcopters are a unique subset of flying platforms that have become very popular in the last few years. They are a flying platform that utilizes the same vertical lift concept as helicopters; however, they employ not one but four motor/propeller combinations to provide an enhanced level of stability. The following image displays such a platform:

The quadcopter has two sets of counter-rotating propellers, which simply means that two of the propellers rotate one way; the other two rotate the other way to provide thrust in the same direction. This provides a platform...