Book Image

Learn Robotics Programming - Second Edition

By : Danny Staple
Book Image

Learn Robotics Programming - Second Edition

By: Danny Staple

Overview of this book

We live in an age where the most complex or repetitive tasks are automated. Smart robots have the potential to revolutionize how we perform all kinds of tasks with high accuracy and efficiency. With this second edition of Learn Robotics Programming, you'll see how a combination of the Raspberry Pi and Python can be a great starting point for robot programming. The book starts by introducing you to the basic structure of a robot and shows you how to design, build, and program it. As you make your way through the book, you'll add different outputs and sensors, learn robot building skills, and write code to add autonomous behavior using sensors and a camera. You'll also be able to upgrade your robot with Wi-Fi connectivity to control it using a smartphone. Finally, you'll understand how you can apply the skills that you've learned to visualize, lay out, build, and code your future robot building projects. By the end of this book, you'll have built an interesting robot that can perform basic artificial intelligence operations and be well versed in programming robots and creating complex robotics projects using what you've learned.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
1
Section 1: The Basics – Preparing for Robotics
7
Section 2: Building an Autonomous Robot – Connecting Sensors and Motors to a Raspberry Pi
15
Section 3: Hearing and Seeing – Giving a Robot Intelligent Sensors
21
Section 4: Taking Robotics Further

Attaching the IMU to the robot

Before we can use the IMU and write code for it, we must securely mount it on the robot and wire it so that the Raspberry Pi can talk to it.

Physical placement

The IMU magnetometer is sensitive to magnetic fields and needs to be away from the motors. For this reason, it should be on a stalk above the robot.

The orientation of the IMU is essential for other experiments to make sense:

Figure 12.4 – Lining up the IMU with the robot

There is a diagram on top of the IMU. The preceding diagram shows how this diagram should line up with the robot. The X-axis should face forward, while the Z-axis should face up, with the little square on the IMU pointing upward. Finally, the Y-axis should point to the left.

The sensor uses I2C. I2C is sensitive to wire distances, so we should mount it above the Raspberry Pi and motor control board where the wire distances are low. The following image shows the parts you will need...