What this book covers
Chapter 1, Introduction to Robotics, contains basic concepts and terminologies of robotics. This chapter is a must for beginners who are just starting with robotics.
Chapter 2, Mechanical Design of a Service Robot, discusses the 2D and 3D CAD designing aspect of the robot using LibreCAD and Blender (free software). This chapter also demonstrates how to use Blender Python APIs in order to build the 3D model.
Chapter 3, Working with Robot Simulation Using ROS and Gazebo, takes you through the simulation of the service robot using Gazebo and ROS.
Chapter 4, Designing ChefBot Hardware, explains the hardware designing of the robot, including block diagram and hardware components required to build ChefBot.
Chapter 5, Working with Robotic Actuators and Wheel Encoders, covers interfacing of robotic actuators and wheel encoders using Tiva C LaunchPad. It also mentions high-end smart actuators like dynamixel.
Chapter 6, Working with Robotic Sensors, discusses interfacing of ultrasonic distance sensors, IR proximity sensors, and IMU using Tiva C LaunchPad.
Chapter 7, Programming Vision Sensors Using Python and ROS, talks about the introduction to Open-CV, OpenNI, and PCL libraries and interfacing these to ROS and programming using Python.
Chapter 8, Working with Speech Recognition and Synthesis Using Python and ROS, discusses speech recognition and synthesis using various libraries and interfacing it to ROS programming using Python.
Chapter 9, Applying Artificial Intelligence to ChefBot Using Python, covers tutorials to build a ChatterBot. This can be used to make the robot interactive.
Chapter 10, Integration of ChefBot Hardware and Interfacing it into ROS, Using Python, explores tutorials to integrate the complete hardware and essential software section. It mainly discusses autonomous navigation of the service robot and how to program it using ROS and Python.
Chapter 11, Designing a GUI for a Robot Using Qt and Python, covers tutorials on how to build a GUI for the user who operates the robot in a typical restaurant. The GUI is built using Qt and the PyQt Python wrapper.
Chapter 12, The Calibration and Testing of ChefBot, explores tutorials on how to calibrate and test the robot for the final run.
