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)

Choosing light versus ultrasonic sensors

The most common ways to sense distance are to use ultrasound or light. The principle of both types is to fire off a pulse and then sense its reflected return, using either its timing or angle to detect a distance. We will focus on the types of sensors that measure the time for a response, otherwise known as the time of flight. The following diagram shows how reflection time is used in these sensors:

Reflections of a distance sensor

Optical sensors

Light-based sensors use infrared laser light that we cannot see. These devices can be very small, however they can suffer in strong sunlight and fluorescent light, making them misbehave. Some objects reflect light poorly or are transparent...