Robotics, the art and science of building machines that can perform some of the same functions as humans or animals, has been a part of human creative ambition since the time of the Greeks, who conceived Talos—a warrior made entirely of bronze that protected their lands and people. Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical knight that could sit, stand, and raise its visor. The first modern robots emerged in the 1920s—robots that could perform the same sort of simple motions as da Vinci's mechanical man through the use of electrical motors and signals.
In recent times, advances in technology have pushed the development of robots to the point of reality. Most of these projects have been created in defense department laboratories and university research facilities. However, new developments in inexpensive hardware and open source software have created opportunities for almost anyone to construct and experiment with automated machines.
The purpose of this book is not only to facilitate but also inspire these kinds of efforts. Robotics is no longer reserved for the PhD or even the trained engineer. You—yes, you—can construct machines that can roll, walk, swim, and even fly with the kind of functionality that is normally associated with intelligent life. I often tell my students that while they laugh at me because I once had to wash dishes by hand, their children will laugh at them because they had to load and unload the dishwasher by hand.
So, off to building the next great robotic breakthrough!
Chapter 1, Preparing the BeagleBone Black, teaches you how to unbox, power up, and load the BeagleBone Black with all of the necessary software to build the projects described in this book.
Chapter 2, Building a Basic Tracked Vehicle, describes your first project, that is, a tracked vehicle. You'll learn how to construct the platform so that you can control the speed and direction of your robot.
Chapter 3, Adding Sensors to Your Tracked Vehicle, explains how, after creating a platform that is mobile, you'll add sensors to help your robot avoid, or find, objects.
Chapter 4, Vision and Image Processing, shows that your robot is maneuverable, but now you'll add the capability to not only sense but also see the world around it.
Chapter 5, Building a Robot that Can Walk, teaches you to build a robot that can walk—a quadruped robot controlled by the BeagleBone Black.
Chapter 6, A Robot that Can Sail, proves that while a robot that can roll or walk is impressive, one that can sail is even more amazing. You'll build a robot that can sail under the control of the BeagleBone Black.
Chapter 7, Using GPS for Navigation, shows that sailing your sailboat is easy if a human is controlling it. You can give your sailboat autonomy by giving it a sense of where it is and where it is going. The GPS system provides this feature and you'll learn how to use it to sail.
Chapter 8, Measuring Wind Speed – Integrating Analog Sensors, teaches you that to sail your sailboat, you'll need to know the wind direction. You'll learn how to use an anemometer (wind sensor) to sail your boat.
Chapter 9, An Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle, demonstrates the construction of a vessel that can be controlled from the surface while it explores the environment under the water.
Chapter 10, A Quadcopter, shows that, now that you've explored the earth and the water, there is only one more place left to go—the air. You'll learn how to construct one of the most stable and maneuverable flying platforms—the quadcopter.
Chapter 11, An Autonomous Quadcopter, covers the final step in exploring the heavens, that is, providing your quadcopter with the capability of flying itself.
Generally, each chapter will detail the hardware and software needed for that chapter. However, before you get started, you'll need a BeagleBone Black, a host computer (Windows, Linux, or Mac), and an Internet connection for your BeagleBone Black, probably through some sort of LAN cable.
If you want a simple guide to building complex robots, then this book is for you. You'll need some programming knowledge, and experience of working with mechanical systems.
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Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Since the make system already knows how to build the pocketsphinx_continuous program, any time you make a change to the continuous.c file, it will rebuild the application."
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
storage = cv.CreateMemStorage(0)
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Go to the WIFI Adapters section to see some devices that others have successfully used."
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