Book Image

Practical Arduino Robotics

By : Lukas Kaul
Book Image

Practical Arduino Robotics

By: Lukas Kaul

Overview of this book

Every robot needs a “brain,” and the Arduino platform provides an incredibly accessible way to bring your Arduino robot to life. Anyone can easily learn to build and program their own robots with Arduino for hobby and commercial uses, making Arduino-based robots the popular choice for school projects, college courses, and the rapid prototyping of industrial applications! Practical Arduino Robotics is a comprehensive guide that equips you with the necessary skills and techniques that can be applied to various projects and applications, from automating repetitive tasks in a laboratory to building engaging mobile robots. Building on basic knowledge of programming and electronics, this book teaches you how to choose the right components, such as Arduino boards, sensors, and motors, and write effective code for your robotics project, including the use of advanced third-party Arduino libraries and interfaces, such as Analog, SPI, I2C, PWM, and UART. You'll also learn different ways to command your robots wirelessly, such as over Wi-Fi. Finally, with basic to advanced project examples, this book illustrates how to build exciting autonomous robots like a self-balancing telepresence robot. By the end of this book, you'll be able to design and create your own custom robots for a wide variety of applications.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Selecting the Right Components for Your Robots
6
Part 2: Writing Effective and Reliable Robot Programs for Arduino
10
Part 3: Building the Hardware, Electronics, and UI of Your Robot
15
Part 4: Advanced Example Projects to Put Your Robotic Skills into Action

3D printing

3D printing is a popular method from the wider field of additive manufacturing to make a very wide variety of mechanical parts cheaply at home. Mastering the 3D printing toolchain, from the design idea in your head to a physical part in your hands, can lift the mechanical side of all your robot projects to the next level.

What is a 3D printer?

A 3D printer is a machine that can create arbitrarily shaped 3D parts from an input material. There are many types of 3D printers. We will focus on the Fused Filament Fabrication type (or FFF for short) since these are by far the most widely used machines. An FFF 3D printer takes in material in the form of a thermoplastic filament from a spool, extrudes it through a hot nozzle where it melts, and deposits the molten material, layer for layer, onto a build plate. The nozzle can move freely in the horizontal x and y directions, allowing for extremely precise material deposition within a horizontal layer. With each layer, the nozzle...