Blogs

Ardupilot goes into the water Part 17

Posted by Harald Molle on August 22, 2011 at 7:07am

Some of you may wonder.

Why was there such so long silence ?

Indeed, my last entry dates back to last christmas. And here is the reason why:

3689421070?profile=originalhttp://www.apress.com/9781430231837

 
I was asked by JD Warren, who is also a diydrones member ( http://diydrones.com/profile/JDWarren ) to help him on a book about Arduino-controlled robots.

JD is a great inventor and maker of various machines that (mostly) roll on wheels. He was also featured on the title of the MAKE magazine in April 2010. 
Finally, with a delay of six months, the book was published by mid July and JD, Josh and i are happy now that all the work is over. 
If you want things to be moved with Arduino, this is the ultimate Book.

There are lots of hands-on descriptions in it and it is also a good starting point for newbies, that have never had a soldering iron in their hand.It gives also a good introduction to the basics of electronics and computerized control.


Here is an overview of some of the chapters:

  • Basics of motor-control
  • Basics of PCB design and fabrication
  • R/C control and decoding
  • Autonomous sensor guidance
  • Frame building from various materials
  • Instructions for a variety of robot designs, including: 


  • Linus the Line Bot, who follows a line on the floor  
  • Wally the Wall-Bot, who tries to avoid crashing to the wall  
  • The Bug-Bot, who acts a little bit like an insect  
  • The Explorer-Bot, who is strong enough to carry a human and that can work outdoors  
  • The RoboBoat, which is navigating via GPS to predefined waypoints.    (this is in fact the chapter written by me and summarizes the building of the catamaran, and the modified ArduPilot hardware that i am using to do the survey of lakes)  
  • The Lawn-Bot 400,  who is the first that can do something useful in your garden  
  • The Seg-Bot, which is in truth not a robot, but a Segway (tm) Clone  
  • And finally: the Battle-Bot


The book is available as e-book or in a printed version:
 http://www.apress.com/9781430231837 or 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Robotics-John-David-Warren/dp/1430231831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314021806&sr=8-1

  

 

 

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Comments

  • Harald Molle February 5, 2014 at 1:19am

    Feel free to contact me..

  • Saraswati February 4, 2014 at 9:43pm

    I also would like to play with leonardo ardupilot on the 40 feet boat in the carrebean and then send it without people in to the hurricane. :-)

    Harald, may be we play together?

  • northstar December 23, 2013 at 10:37am

    Harald:

    Sent you a friend request so I can Private Message you.

    Thanks

  • Harald Molle December 23, 2013 at 3:02am

    Hi Northstar,

    to make it short: No

    But: 

    - I have ported the code to the ARDUINO Leonardo, which is also OK and absolutely adequate for the job.

    - APM is fine, but you will not need all the features.

    - My design concept was to keep the code as simple as possible, therefore it has some drawbacks concerning ease of use. There is no connection to the mission planner, you still have to plan the mission with Google Earth or the like.

    - Anyway, i did some experiences with the first version of the APM, i have ported the code and it worked.

      There are some issues with the servo library, but should be feasible.

    - Water props and Rudder works also fine, but after lots of experiences with that approach i turned back to 

      Air Props with the windmill assembly. (it also worked in the mediterranean sea under windspeeds up to 4 BFT)

    Yo can contact me for additional info if yo like.

    Regards

    Harald

  • northstar December 22, 2013 at 2:03pm
    Hey:
    Bought your book. Great to have the step by step instructions.
    I just purchased the APM 2.6 Set with GPS/Compass.
    My questions is have you optimized the code in your book for AM 2.6. Can I upload it via Mission planner and plot the waypoints within Mission Planner

    Thanks
    Under Construction - Service provided by CNTSB www.cntsb.com
    CNT Solution Sdn. Bhd. CNTSB provide custom software solutions, the custom web design, functional, installation and commissioning of web page, conten…
  • Harald Molle April 21, 2012 at 6:53am

    @Jim:

    Yes, the systems are totally separate, the only connection is over the Power supply.

    The fishfinder has its own GPS and i record the NMEA Data (which contains position and depth) with an RS232 Datalogger to an SD Card.

    The data is then processed with Dr. Depth.

    We are actually working on a new, more ruggedized boat concept with a side-scan sonar on it.

    Stay tuned...

  • Jim DeGrand April 20, 2012 at 12:56pm

    Harald - good job on the book and the blog!  I have a question about the integration of the fishfinder and the autopilot: are they totally separate?  Does the fishfinder use its own gps so you just hand a file saved on the fishfinder to Dr depth when the boat returns to shore?  Thanks for your help and pioneering work - I am about to follow in your footsteps!

    Jim

  • Harald Molle April 2, 2012 at 12:44am

    @daniel,

    no problem, i have ported the code to the APM.

  • m00se March 2, 2012 at 4:44am

    hi,

    i sent you a pm, I am really really interested in making or rather finishing my boat, i have an ardupilot mega 2560 and am looking for some good code to use with it,

    if you can help me out it would be great,

    thanks

  • Christi M. Underdown-DuBois November 28, 2011 at 7:23am

    Harald, I'm a librarian for Ingram, which is distributing your book. I would love to establish an authority heading with your preferred form of name & birthdate in the Library of Congress, so you will never be confused with any other authors by the same name. This, of course, will help promote your book in libraries around the world. Would you please write me back and help me help you?

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