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)

Power smoothing capacitor

When less-than-fresh batteries are used, power drawn for the wheel motors can cause the servo motor to droop. While this may make for cute-looking behavior as though it's shaking its head when reversing away from things or changing direction, it's not ideal and means there are voltage drops as the motors pull lots of current. This is especially noticeable if you have used alkaline batteries, that are not able to deliver as much current as LiPo batteries can.

A capacitor is a component used to store power, almost like a battery. Using a large capacitor between a ground pin and voltage pin on the servo motor pins can prevent this voltage drop. I recommend a minimum for 470 uF, if not bigger, using an electrolytic capacitor.

The pattern is to use a jumper wire from the servo V-pin to the breadboard. At the breadboard, wire this into an empty column...