Book Image

Learn Robotics Programming - Second Edition

By : Danny Staple
Book Image

Learn Robotics Programming - Second Edition

By: Danny Staple

Overview of this book

We live in an age where the most complex or repetitive tasks are automated. Smart robots have the potential to revolutionize how we perform all kinds of tasks with high accuracy and efficiency. With this second edition of Learn Robotics Programming, you'll see how a combination of the Raspberry Pi and Python can be a great starting point for robot programming. The book starts by introducing you to the basic structure of a robot and shows you how to design, build, and program it. As you make your way through the book, you'll add different outputs and sensors, learn robot building skills, and write code to add autonomous behavior using sensors and a camera. You'll also be able to upgrade your robot with Wi-Fi connectivity to control it using a smartphone. Finally, you'll understand how you can apply the skills that you've learned to visualize, lay out, build, and code your future robot building projects. By the end of this book, you'll have built an interesting robot that can perform basic artificial intelligence operations and be well versed in programming robots and creating complex robotics projects using what you've learned.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
1
Section 1: The Basics – Preparing for Robotics
7
Section 2: Building an Autonomous Robot – Connecting Sensors and Motors to a Raspberry Pi
15
Section 3: Hearing and Seeing – Giving a Robot Intelligent Sensors
21
Section 4: Taking Robotics Further

Chapter 10: Using Python to Control Servo Motors

Servo motors can make precise and repeatable motions. Motion such as this is vital for moving sensors, controlling robot legs or arms, and moving them to a known position. Its uses are so engineers can predict robot behavior, so a robot can repeat things in automation, or so code can move limbs to accurately respond to what their sensors are instructing them. Raspberry Pi or add-on boards can control them. In this chapter, we will use these motors to build a pan and tilt mechanism—a head to position a sensor.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • What are servo motors?
  • Positioning a servo motor with the Raspberry Pi
  • Adding a pan and tilt mechanism
  • Creating pan and tilt code