The epicenter of the small size personal computers has been more visible than ever since the Raspberry Pi debut in 2012 and create waves especially in the DIY sector. Probably if you already have a Pi in your portfolio as part of maker culture, you already use the embedded system in several projects. But the big question is what you can do more in robotics with this small computer?
If you want a fully functional computer…you can buy a Dell, Apple, HP …and several other brands with a reputation in their markets. When you buy a computer for $35, most probably you don’t have too much expectations. This is the secret of Pi! Without too much accessories but with a lot of features including ports and GPIO’s, you can build autonomous or semi-autonomous robots, robotic vision applications, and can be the brain of many more projects and for almost anything.
As embedded system, the Raspberry Pi has an undefined combination of hardware and software, which is one of the main purposes to control a device, a system, or a process.
It’s expected to see customizable computer everywhere in the coming years, as well as robots. If you think to get the Pi to improve your hardware and software skills, check below all the important features in robotics for an embedded system and start making your own robotic application starting from this simple but powerful single board computer.
Raspberry Pi applications in robotics
Over years, the trend was to engineer different platforms that turns the Pi into a fully operational robot able to control autonomous or semi-autonomous robots. This trend is accentuated more than ever in our days where large communities of hackers, hobbyists, engineers, or students have used the fruit-named single board computer as the main embedded system for a wide range of projects.
In robotics, the list of Raspberry Pi projects include:
- quadcopters
- self-driving robots
- humanoid robots
- security robots
- vision applications
- kits
- home automation system
- 3D printers
Reasons to use the Raspberry Pi in robotic projects
Building a robot is a consuming task of resources, and why not a consuming task of energy and time. With good reason you have to take care of what tools you will use and to know all the reasons why you have to choose one product and no other. In this case, you have to abuse by the Raspberry Pi features and build with minimum resources the best robot. Below you can find up to 13 reasons, which distributes in various categories the features of the single board computer.
1. A normal computer at the lowest price
The price is perhaps one of the greatest thing at this small size computer. With an incredible affordable price of only $37(buy here), any hacker, hobbyist, student or engineer can grab a Pi, several accessories, and a set of handy tools and start build the desire project.
2. A small size doesn’t mean low performances
As I mention before, the fruit-named single board computer has the size of a credit card, which can be used almost anywhere. It can be used on almost any robotic platform, even in your wallet if you plan to build a wearable application.
3. Zero noise
Without noise or vibration accessories such as a processor cooler, the Pi is completely silent.
4. No problem with power consumption
Compared with a full-size computer, the RPi has a power consumption of about ten times lower than this. In terms of watts, the small size computer draws about 3.5 to 7 watts of electricity.
5. A lot of general purpose I/O capabilities
The Pi can be compared with a planet surrounded by satellites. These satellites are connected physically through input and output connectors to this small planet called Pi.
In addition to familiar ports such as USB, Ethernet and HDMI, the Pi has in its list of features lower-level interfaces able to connect a series of modules directly with chips.
These not too friendly GPIO signals are not plug-and-play and are designed as 2×13 header pins including SPI, I2C, serial UART, 3V3 and 5V power.
6. All the data are stored on a simple SD card
A simple SD card can be used to store all the Pi data including here the operating system and the code.
7. Use the power of light for a complete status
On the motherboard are located up to 5 status lights with meanings for:
- ACT – D5 (Green) – SD Card Access
- PWR – D6 (Red) – 3.3 V Power is present
- FDX – D7 (Green) – Full Duplex (LAN) connected
- LNK – D8(Green) – Link/Activity (LAN)
- 100 – D9(Yellow) – 100Mbit (LAN) connected
8. Built-in multimedia interface
The display port on the Pi is a standard high-definition multimedia interface with a maximum resolution of 1920×1200 pixels. This feature is very nice if you plan to build a robot able to display graphics and talk with you at the same time.
9. Long list of compatible operating systems
Despite its diminutive size, the Pi is a very capable machine able to run a long list of different operating systems starting with a custom version of Linux and up to an Android OS.
A short list of operating systems already ported to Raspberry Pi:
- Linux
- Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
- Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
- Arch Linux ARM
- Raspbian
- Firefox OS
- Puppy Linux
- Gentoo Linux
- Google Chromium OS
- openSUSE
- PiBang Linux
- Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix
- WebOS
- Open webOS
- RISC OS
- Unix
10. Computer vision applications using Raspberry Pi
From face recognition to object tracking, you have large opportunities to build a lot of computer vision application with one of the best resources such as OpenCV.
11. Able to control robots in different ways
You have at least three possibilities to control robots with RPi: autonomous, using a web page, or WiFi.
12. Wide range of programming languages
The Pi board was designed in mind to encourage anyone to learn how to code, and this is a good reason to build a product with support for a wide range of programming languages.
Below is a short overview of the languages supported by Pi, but have in mind that any programming language compatible with ARMv6 chip can run on Pi:
- Python
- Java
- C
- C++
- Perl
- JavaScript
- JQuery
13. A huge community behind the Pi products
Any support for both software and hardware side can be obtained easily from the Raspberry Pi community, which is one of the most active community in robotics and automation.
The Raspberry Pi aim is definitely to make automation and robots as fun and accessible as Lego Mindstorms series is today, and rightly is about to become the ultimate maker tool.
If you already use the Pi in your projects or if you have in mind to use the Pi in your projects, please leave a comment with your experience with this small computer or with your expectations from the fruit-named single board computer. Looking forward to hearing your answers.