Book Image

ROS Robotics By Example

Book Image

ROS Robotics By Example

Overview of this book

The visionaries who created ROS developed a framework for robotics centered on the commonality of robotic systems and exploited this commonality in ROS to expedite the development of future robotic systems. From the fundamental concepts to advanced practical experience, this book will provide you with an incremental knowledge of the ROS framework, the backbone of the robotics evolution. ROS standardizes many layers of robotics functionality from low-level device drivers to process control to message passing to software package management. This book provides step-by-step examples of mobile, armed, and flying robots, describing the ROS implementation as the basic model for other robots of these types. By controlling these robots, whether in simulation or in reality, you will use ROS to drive, move, and fly robots using ROS control.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
ROS Robotics By Example
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Summary


This chapter featured information about flying robots that are described as quadrotors or quadcopters because of their four propellers. The first few sections of the chapter described the quadrotors and their flying characteristics as well as the sensors that they might contain. The sensors such as magnetometers, gyroscopes, and accelerometers were discussed with the aim of explaining how they allow the quadrotors to stabilize themselves in the air. Other accessories such as cameras and GPS units were also covered.

The rules for flying safely were presented. These are basically common sense rules such as do not fly over people or pets. Government agencies such as the FAA in the United States govern the use of airspace and those rules should be followed carefully.

The Hector simulator is excellent, particularly for new pilots of quadrotors in that they can be flown in simulation without any danger of real crashes. Details of downloading the Hector software were covered in this chapter...