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

Mission briefing


You'll be adding a microphone and speaker to our basic board, and you'll add functionality so the robot can recognize voice commands and respond via the speaker. Additionally, you'll be able to issue voice commands and have the robot respond with an action. When you're freed from typing in commands, you can interact with your projects in an impressive way. This project will require adding both HW and SW.

Why is it awesome?

Interfacing with your projects via speech is more fun than typing in commands, and it allows interaction with our project without using a keyboard or mouse. Besides, what self-respecting robot wants to carry around a keyboard? No, you want to interact in natural ways with your projects, and this project will teach you how. Interfacing via speech also helps you find your way around the board, learn the available free functionality, and become familiar with the community of functionality developers.

Your objectives

Your objectives are as follows:

  • Hooking up the...