Book Image

Learning Robotics using Python - Second Edition

By : Lentin Joseph
Book Image

Learning Robotics using Python - Second Edition

By: Lentin Joseph

Overview of this book

Robot Operating System (ROS) is one of the most popular robotics software frameworks in research and industry. It has various features for implementing different capabilities in a robot without implementing them from scratch. This book starts by showing you the fundamentals of ROS so you understand the basics of differential robots. Then, you'll learn about robot modeling and how to design and simulate it using ROS. Moving on, we'll design robot hardware and interfacing actuators. Then, you'll learn to configure and program depth sensors and LIDARs using ROS. Finally, you'll create a GUI for your robot using the Qt framework. By the end of this tutorial, you'll have a clear idea of how to integrate and assemble everything into a robot and how to bundle the software package.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Building ChefBot hardware

The first section of the robot that needs to be configured is the base plate. The base plate consists of two motors and their attached wheels, the caster wheels, and the base plate supports. The following image shows the top and bottom view of the base plate:

Base plate with motors, wheels, and caster wheels

The base plate has a radius of 15 cm, and the motors and their attached wheels are mounted on the opposite sides of the plate by cutting two sections from the base plate. Two rubber caster wheels are mounted on opposite sides of the base plate to achieve a good balance and support for the robot. We can either choose ball caster wheels or rubber caster wheels for this robot. The wires of the two motors are taken to the top of the base plate through a hole in the center of the base plate. To extend the layers of the robot, we will put base plate supports...