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

Working with the magnetometer

A magnetometer reads magnetic field strengths in 3D to produce a vector. Code you write can use this to find the magnetic north, in the same way as a compass. In this section, we'll look closer at the device, learn how to get a reading from it, and see what vectors it produces.

It may be useful to have a space with very few magnets present. Let's understand the magnetometer more.

Understanding the magnetometer

A compass measures a heading from the Earth's magnetic field by using a magnetized needle or disk. The following image is of a compass:

Figure 12.19 – A traditional compass

The compass shown in the preceding image has a rotating magnetized disk balanced on a center pin. This variety is a small button compass, which is about 25 mm in diameter.

Our chosen IMU contains a device known as a magnetometer. This electronically senses a magnetic field and can be used as a compass.

Most magnetometers...