Book Image

BeagleBone Robotic Projects

By : Richard Grimmett
Book Image

BeagleBone Robotic Projects

By: Richard Grimmett

Overview of this book

Thanks to new, inexpensive microcontrollers, robotics has become far more accessible than it was in the past. These microcontrollers provide a whole new set of capabilities to allow even the most inexperienced users to make amazingly complicated projects. Beaglebone is effectively a small, light, cheap computer in a similar vein to Raspberry Pi and Arduino. It has all of the extensibility of today's desktop machines, but without the bulk, expense, or noise. This project guide provides step-by-step instructions to allow anyone to use this new, low cost platform in some fascinating robotics projects. By the time you are finished, your projects will be able to see, speak, listen, detect their surroundings, and move in a variety of amazing ways. The book begins with unpacking and powering up the components.This will include guidance on what to purchase and how to connect it all successfully–and a primer on programming the BeagleBone Black. Chapter by chapter, we will add additional software functionality available from the open source community, including how to make the system see using a webcam, how to hear using a microphone, and how to speak using a speaker. We then add hardware to make your robots move–including wheeled and legged examples–as well as covering how to add sonar sensors to avoid or find objects, plus wireless control to make your robot truly autonomous. Adding GPS allows the robot to find itself. Finally the book covers how to integrate all of this functionality so that it can all work together, before developing the most impressive robotics projects: those that can sail, fly, and explore underwater.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
BeagleBone Robotic Projects
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Mission briefing


We've spent lot of time on individual functionality, and your robotic projects now have lots of functionality that we can add to our projects. This chapter will bring all of these parts together into a framework that allows the different parts to work together.

Why is it awesome?

You don't want the robot to just walk, talk, or see. You want it to do all of these in a coordinated package. In this chapter, you'll learn how to programmatically connect all of these individual capabilities and make your projects seem intelligent.

Your objectives

In this chapter, we will:

  • Create a general control structure so that different capabilities can work together through system calls

Mission checklist

Finally we're done purchasing the HW. In this chapter, we'll be adding functionality via SW. You'll need ample storage space for an array of new SW. First, let's check how much space you have on your memory card. You should install discus: a program that will let you see how much disk space you...