In the previous sections, we looked at a series of microcontroller boards with varied features, which have all of the components embedded in a single chip. What if you want your robot or drone to perform modern-day computations for path planning or obstacle avoidance? Microcontroller boards help us read sensor signals and control the actuator signals, provided they follow simple math libraries for understanding and processing sensors.
What if you want to perform intense computation, store incoming sensor values over time, and then perform computations on such stored values? That is where SBC comes into play. SBCs can be loaded with an OS and could perform computations like a modern-day desktop, in a small form factor setup. They can't immediately replicate a modern-day computer as desktop computers nowadays are attached to additional...