Packt is pleased to announce the release of its new book and eBook BeagleBone Robotic Projects. This practical approach to robotic systems helps readers communicate with their robot and teach it to detect and respond to its environment. Develop walking, rolling, swimming, and flying robots.

About the author:

Richard Grimmett has always been fascinated by computers and electronics from his very first programming project that used Fortran on punch cards. He has a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Leadership Studies. He also has 26 years of experience in the Radar and Telecommunications industries, and even has one of the original brick phones. He now teaches Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Brigham Young University, Idaho, where his office is filled with many of his robotics projects.

BeagleBone Black is a MSRP community-supported development platform for developers and hobbyists. With BeagleBone Black, Linux can be booted in under 10 seconds and users can get started on development in less than 5 minutes with just a single USB cable. Among other differences, it increases RAM to 512 MB, the processor clock to 1 GHz, and adds HDMI and 2 GB of eMMC flash memory. Beaglebone is effectively a small, light, cheap computer in a similar vein to Raspberry Pi and Arduino. It has all of the extensibility of today's desktop machines, but without the bulk, expense, or noise.

BeagleBone Robotic Projects provides step-by-step instructions to allow anyone to use this new, low cost platform in some fascinating robotics projects. By the time readers are finished, their projects will be able to see, speak, listen, detect their surroundings, and move in a variety of amazing ways. The book begins with unpacking and powering up the components. This will include guidance on what to purchase and how to connect it all successfully, and a primer on programming the BeagleBone Black.

This book will help readers add additional software available from the open source community, including how to make the system see using a webcam, how to hear using a microphone, and how to speak using a speaker. It also teaches readers about robot movement, including wheeled and legged examples, as well as adding sonar sensors to avoid or find objects. Readers will understand wireless control to make their robot truly autonomous, and adding GPS to allow the robot to find itself. The book also covers how to integrate all of this functionality to work together, before developing the most impressive robotics projects: those that can sail, fly, and explore underwater.

BeagleBone Robotic Projects covers the following essential topics:
Chapter 1: Getting Started with BeagleBone Black
Chapter 2: Programming BeagleBone Black
Chapter 3: Providing Speech Input and Output
Chapter 4: Allowing BeagleBone Black to See
Chapter 5: Making the Unit Mobile - Controlling Wheeled Movement
Chapter 6: Making the Unit Very Mobile - Controlling Legged Movement
Chapter 7: Avoiding Obstacles Using Sensors
Chapter 8: Going Truly Mobile - Remote Control of Your Robot
Chapter 9: Using a GPS Receiver to Locate Your Robot
Chapter 10: System Dynamics
Chapter 11: By Land, Sea, and Air

This book is for anyone who is curious about using new, low-cost hardware to create robotic projects that have previously been the domain of research labs, major universities or Defence departments. Some programming experience would be useful. Readers who are comfortable using their personal computer can use this book to construct far more complex systems than they would have thought possible. This book may be used in a wide variety of projects from middle school science fair projects to university courses, and senior design projects to first prototypes of very complex systems.