Book Image

BeagleBone Robotic Projects - Second Edition

By : Richard Grimmett
Book Image

BeagleBone Robotic Projects - Second Edition

By: Richard Grimmett

Overview of this book

BeagleBone Blue 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 that enable 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 includes guidance on what to purchase and how to connect it all successfully, and a primer on programming the BeagleBone Blue. You will add additional software functionality available from the open source community, including making the system see using a webcam, hear using a microphone, and speak using a speaker. You will then learn to use the new hardware capability of the BeagleBone Blue to make your robots move, as well as discover how to add sonar sensors to avoid or find objects. Later, you will learn to remotely control your robot through iOS and Android devices. At the end of this book, you will see how to integrate all of these functionalities to work together, before developing the most impressive robotics projects: Drone and Submarine.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Chapter 3. Making the Unit Mobile - Controlling Wheeled Movement

You can access your board now. You've learned some simple programming. Now you will add the capability to move the entire project. Perhaps the easiest way to make our projects mobile is to add a wheeled base. You'll do that in this chapter, where you will be introduced to some of the basics of controlling DC motors and using the BeagleBone Blue to control the speed and direction of your wheeled platform.

Even though you can access your board, you need to make it mobile to really call it a robot. In this chapter, you'll learn how to attach your board, both mechanically and electrically, to a board so that your projects can be mobile. Mobility; what could be more amazing than that?

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Connecting the BeagleBone Blue directly to your wheeled platform
  • Controlling your mobile platform programmatically using the BeagleBone Blue
  • Adding a compass to enable simple path planning