Make an Arduino-Controlled Robot

by Margolis, Michael

• ISBN13: 9781449344375
• ISBN10: 1449344372
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-10-23
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

Arduino is a family of microcontrollers (tiny computers) and a software creation environment that makes it easy for you to create programs (called sketches) that can interact with the physical world. Arduino enables your robot to sense the environment and respond in a rich variety of ways. This book helps you to build a robot that is capable of performing a wide variety of tasks.This book is for people who want to explore robotics concepts like movement, obstacle detection, handling sensors, remote control, and all kinds of real world physical computing challenges. It is for people who want to understand how these concepts can be used to build, expand and customize your robot.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction to Robot Building	p. 1
Why Build a Robot?	p. 4
How Robots Move	p. 5
Tools	p. 6
Building the Electronics	p. 9
Hardware Required	p. 9
Construction Techniques	p. 10
Soldering	p. 10
Building the Motor Controller	p. 10
Soldering the Reflectance Sensors	p. 17
Making a Line Sensor Mount	p. 17
Next Steps	p. 20
Building the Two-Wheeled Mobile Platform	p. 21
Hardware Required	p. 22
Mechanical Assembly	p. 23
Lay Out the Chassis Parts	p. 23
Motor Assembly	p. 24
Assemble the Chassis Components	p. 26
Attaching the Control Electronics	p. 37
Mounting the IR sensors	p. 38
Mounting the IR Sensors for Edge Detection	p. 39
Mounting the IR Sensors for Line Following	p. 41
Next Steps	p. 43
Building the Four-Wheeled Mobile Platform	p. 45
Hardware Required	p. 46
Mechanical Assembly	p. 47
Lay Out the Chassis Parts	p. 47
Motor Assembly	p. 49
Assemble the Chassis Components	p. 51
Solder the Power and Motor Connections	p. 54
Connecting the Battery Pack and Power Switch	p. 55
Building the Optional Trickle Charger	p. 56
Assemble the Chassis	p. 57
Mounting Arduino and Connecting Wires to the Shield	p. 58
Mounting the IR sensors	p. 65
Mounting the IR Sensors for Edge Detection	p. 65
Mounting the IR Sensors for Line Following	p. 67
Next Steps	p. 68
Tutorial: Getting Started with Arduino	p. 71
Hardware Required	p. 72
Arduino Software	p. 72
Arduino Hardware	p. 72
Installing the Integrated Development Environment (IDE)	p. 74
Installing Arduino on Windows	p. 74
Installing Arduino on OS X	p. 75
Installing Arduino on Linux	p. 76
Driver Installation	p. 76
Connecting the Arduino Board	p. 78
Using the IDE	p. 78
Uploading and Running the Blink Sketch	p. 81
Using Tabs	p. 82
Installing Third-Party Libraries	p. 83
Testing the Robot's Basic Functions	p. 85
Hardware Required	p. 85
Software Prerequisites	p. 86
Sketches Used in This Chapter	p. 87
Load and Run helloRobot.ino	p. 88
About the Sketch	p. 95
Troubleshooting	p. 98
Making the Sketch Easy to Enhance	p. 99
Controlling Speed and Direction	p. 103
Hardware Required	p. 103
Sketches Used in This Chapter	p. 103
Types of Motors	p. 104
Motor Controllers	p. 106
Controlling Motor Speed	p. 109
How Motor Speed Is Controlled	p. 109
Code for Motor Control	p. 110
Calibrating Rotation and Tracking	p. 116
Software Architecture for Robot Mobility	p. 119
Functions to Encapsulate Robot Movements	p. 123
Core Movement Code	p. 124
Additional Core Functions	p. 126
Functions to Rotate the Robot	p. 127
Higher-Level Movement Functions	p. 130
Tutorial: Introduction to Sensors	p. 133
Hardware Discussed	p. 133
Software	p. 134
Infrared Reflectance Sensors	p. 134
Sonar Distance Sensors	p. 137
Maxbotix EZ1 Sonar Distance Sensor	p. 139
Sharp IR Distance Sensor	p. 141
Proximity Sensor	p. 142
Sound Sensor	p. 143
Arduino Cookbook	p. 146
Modifying the Robot to React to Edges and Lines	p. 147
Hardware Required	p. 147
Sketches Used in This Chapter	p. 148
The Look Code	p. 149
Edge Detection	p. 150
Line Following	p. 154
Seeing Sketch Data	p. 160
Autonomous Movement	p. 163
Hardware Required	p. 163
Sketches Used in This Chapter	p. 164
Mounting a Ping Distance Sensor	p. 165
Making a Mount for the Ping Sensor	p. 166
Mounting the Ping Sensor in a Fixed Position	p. 168
Mounting the Ping Sensor on a Servo	p. 168
Letting the Robot Wander	p. 170
Adding Scanning	p. 178
Remote Control	p. 185
Hardware Required	p. 185
Sketches Used in This Chapter	p. 186
Design of the Remote Control Code	p. 186
Controlling the Robot with a TV Type IR Remote	p. 190
Installing the IR Decoder Chip	p. 190
The IR Remote Software	p. 192
Enhancing Your Robot	p. 201
Using Other Hardware with Your Robot	p. 205
Debugging Your Robot	p. 211
Power Sources	p. 221
Programming Constructs	p. 231
Arduino Pin and Timer Usage	p. 235
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