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

About the Reviewers

Álvaro García Gómez is a computer engineer at the University of Valladolid (Spain) and a technical administrator of IT systems. He was focused on software development, but a short time later robotics and embedded devices aroused his curiosity. Now he is specialized in machine learning and autonomous robotics, which involve his two passions: computing and electronics. Now he is working in his own company that develops free software and hardware.

Lihang Li received his B.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China in 2012 and is now pursuing his M.S. degree in Computer Vision at National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition (NLPR) from the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IACAS).

He is a member of Dian Group from HUST and mainly concentrated on Embedded System Development when he was an undergraduate. He is familiar with Embedded Linux, ARM, DSP, and various communication interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, and ZigBee, among others). He took part in a competition called The Asia-Pacific Robot Contest (ABU Robocon) with his team in 2012 and secured third place among 29 teams in China.

As a graduate student, he is focusing on Computer Vision and specially on SLAM algorithms. In his free time, he likes to take part in Open Source Activities and now is President of the Open Source Club, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Also, building a multicopter is his hobby and he is with a team called OpenDrone from Beijing Linux User Group (BLUG).

His interest includes: Linux, Open Source, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Computer Vision algorithms, Machine Learning and Data Mining, and various programming languages.

You can find him at his personal website, http://hustcalm.me.

Derek Molloy is a senior lecturer in the School of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Computing at Dublin City University, Ireland. Since 1997, he has lectured in object-oriented programming, 3D Computer Graphics, and Digital Electronics at postgraduate and undergraduate levels. His research interests are in the fields of Computer & Machine Vision, 3D Graphics and Visualization, and e-learning. He is a key academic member of the Centre for Image Processing and Analysis (CIPA) at DCU. He has published his works widely in international journals and conferences, including an important textbook, Machine Vision Algorithms in Java, Springer (2001). In his spare time he runs the DerekMolloyDCU YouTube channel that contains many instructional videos on the use of the BeagleBone, and he integrates everything on his personal blog at www.derekmolloy.ie.