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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..

  • 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

  • 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...

  • 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

  • Harald Molle October 20, 2011 at 2:50am
    Yes, all issues are covered
    - Materials used
    - construction of the hulls
    - propulsion assembly
    - Modification of the AP Hardware
    - Software
    - mission Planning
    - Trouble shooting

    btw.
    The book covers much of other rhings, including introduction to Arduino, basics of electronics and much more.
  • bigkahuna October 18, 2011 at 10:51pm

    Congratulations on the book!  How much detail is included in your chapter on the RoboBoat?  Does it include all the code and construction details to build the complete project?  If so that alone would make it worth buying.  :)

  • Moderator
    Mark Harrison August 24, 2011 at 9:07pm
    Looks good, congratulations! I've just ordered my copy.
  • Harald Molle August 23, 2011 at 2:02am

    @bergspreken 

    The eplorer bot was made by JD, you can contact him via this link :

    http://diydrones.com/profile/JDWarren

    @simone:

    I believe it is only available as PDF. But you can contact APRESS, they should know

     

     

  • Simone Chiaretta August 23, 2011 at 12:13am

    Congrats. I wrote a few book about development (published by Wiley/Wrox) and I know how they can steal your spare time :)

    Do you know if the book will be available on Amazon Kindle? I hate printed books (because don't know where to put them at home) but I have an extensive credit on Amazon (so would hate to buy books from other stores).

This reply was deleted.