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

Commonly used sensor types for Arduino robots

There are so many distinct types of robots that it is impossible to make a general recommendation for the right sensors to choose for your project. But it is useful to know what sensors are out there so you know what you can choose from. We will look at a list of sensor types in this section, and then revisit some of them later in the chapter as examples for several types of interfaces. Most of the parts that we will call sensors are technically sensor modules. The actual sensor is only one part of it, and there are additional parts such as voltage regulators, signal conditioning circuitry, and Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs). It is not uncommon for all these parts to be integrated into a single chip.

Switches and buttons

Arguably the simplest sensor types are switches and buttons that either open or close a contact when pressed, and do the opposite when released. Simple as they are, they might be all that your first mobile robot...