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

Using an ultrasonic sensor

An ultrasonic sensor is used to measure the distance between an obstacle or an object. An ultrasonic sensor consists of a transmitting transducer and a receiving transducer. The transmitting transducer (the trigger) emits ultrasonic pulses (also referred to as ultrasonic sound), which collide with nearby obstacles and are received by the receiving transducer (the echo). The sensor determines the distance between a target by measuring the time difference between the sending and the receiving of ultrasonic waves. The following diagram illustrates this process:

The ultrasonic sensor we will use for this project is called an HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, which is one of the most widely-used ultrasonic sensors. It can measure distances in the range of 0–180 cm, with a resolution of about 0.3 cm. It has a frequency of around 40 KHz. The HC-SR04 sensor...