Book Image

Hands-On Robotics Programming with C++

By : Dinesh Tavasalkar, Lentin Joseph
Book Image

Hands-On Robotics Programming with C++

By: Dinesh Tavasalkar, Lentin Joseph

Overview of this book

C++ is one of the most popular legacy programming languages for robotics, and a combination of C++ and robotics hardware is used in many leading industries. This book will bridge the gap between Raspberry Pi and C/C++ programming and enable you to develop applications for Raspberry Pi. You'll even be able to implement C programs in Raspberry Pi with the WiringPi library. The book will guide you through developing a fully functional car robot and writing programs to move it in different directions. You’ll then create an obstacle-avoiding robot using an ultrasonic sensor. In addition to this, you’ll find out how to control the robot wirelessly using your PC or Mac. This book will also help you work with object detection and tracking using OpenCV, and guide you through exploring face detection techniques. Finally, you will create an Android app and control the robot wirelessly with an Android smartphone. By the end of this book, you will have gained experience in developing a robot using Raspberry Pi and C/C++ programming.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Getting Started with wiringPi on a Raspberry Pi
4
Section 2: Raspberry Pi Robotics
8
Section 3: Face and Object Recognition Robot
12
Section 4: Smartphone-Controlled Robot

Setting up a Raspberry Pi 3B+ as a desktop computer

To set up the Raspberry Pi 3B + and install the Raspbian OS on it, we will need various hardware and software components. The hardware components include the following:

  • A laptop to install Raspbian OS on a microSD card.
  • A keyboard.
  • A mouse.
  • An SD card—a minimum of an 8 GB memory card is more than sufficient, but with an 8 GB card, the default OS will occupy 50 percent of memory card space. Later on in this chapter, we will also install OpenCV on your Raspberry Pi, and since OpenCV will also occupy a lot of space on your memory card, you will need to uninstall some default software. So, I recommend you use a 16 GB or 32 GB memory card—with a 32 GB memory card, the default OS only occupies 15 percent of the card's space.
  • An SD card reader.
  • A display unit—this can be a computer monitor or TV, as long...