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Basics 3 min read

Robotic Arm

Servomotor Building Blocks for Robotics The servomotor brackets discussed in this chapter will allow you to create various servomotor robots and projects. Servomotors are ideal for powering robots. They are readily available in many sizes, are inexpensive, provide powerful torque for their size and weight, and are positional. The output shafts on most hobby servomotors are guaranteed positional between 0° and 90°. Most servomotors’ output shaft range extends past 90°, coming close to 180°. The servomotor bracket components are shown in Fig. 12.1. Each of the aluminum U brackets that make up the assembly has multiple holes for connecting…

Aug 11, 2021↗

Basics 3 min read

How the circuit works

Before we can get into the nuts and bolts of how the interface circuit functions, we must look at the binary information output by the speech recognition circuit. The output of the speech recognition circuit consists of two 4bit binarycoded decimal (BCD) numbers. This binary (BCD) information is shown on the speech circuit’s two-digit digital display. Whenever a word is detected, the circuit uses the digital display to output the word number it has recognized, or else it outputs its unrecognized/error code. If the word detected is not recognized, the circuit will display one of the following error codes: Our interface design incorporates a PIC microcontroller. A preprogrammed microcontroller’s (16F84) first job is to determine if a word has been spoken. To do this, we use an LM339 comparator. A reference voltage for the comparator is generated using a voltage divider made up of…

Aug 11, 2021↗

Basics 5 min read

Speech Recognition Circuit

The speech recognition circuit is available as a kit from Images SI Inc. You can purchase the main components, HM2007, SRAM, and printed circuit boards separately if you like and build from scratch. The kit takes a modular approach and uses three separate printed circuit (PC) boards. The three PC boards are the main circuit board containing the speech recognition circuit, digital display board, and keypad. The keypad and digital display are removable from the main circuit board. They are needed to communicate with and program the main speech recognition circuit.…

Aug 11, 2021↗

Basics 5 min read

Speech Recognition

In the near future, speech will be the method for controlling appliances, toys, tools, computers, and robotics. There is a huge commercial market waiting for this technology to mature. Our speech recognition circuit is a standalone trainable speech recognition circuit that may be interfaced to control just about anything electrical. The interface circuit we will build in the second part of this chapter will allow this speech recognition circuit to control a variety of electrical devices such as appliances, test instruments, VCRs, TVs, and of course robots. The circuit is trained (programmed) to recognize words you want it to recognize. The…

Aug 11, 2021↗

Basics 7 min read

Hexapod Walker

Legged walkers are a class of robots that imitate the locomotion of animals and insects, using legs. Legged robots have the potential to transverse rough terrains that are impassable by standard wheeled vehicles. It is with this in mind that robotics are developing walker robots. Imitation of Life Legged walkers may imitate the locomotion style of insects, crabs, and sometimes humans. Biped walkers are still a little rare, requiring balance and a good deal more engineering science than multilegged robots. A bipedal robot walker is discussed in detail in Chap. 13. In this chapter we will build a six legged…

Aug 11, 2021↗

Basics 6 min read

Braitenberg Vehicles

In 1984 Valentino Braitenberg published a book titled Vehicles—Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. In his book Valentino describes a number of wondrous vehicles that exhibit interesting behaviors based on the use of a few electronic neurons Similar in concept to Walter’s seminal neural work with his robot tortoises, Valentino’s vehicle behavior is more straightforward, making it somewhat easier to follow both theoretically and logically. This also makes it easier to implement his ideas into real designs for robots. In this chapter we will build a few Braitenberg type vehicles. At the heart of Braitenberg vehicles is his description of a basic vehicle, which is a sensor connected to a motor. Braitenberg continues to explain the relationship between the sensor and motor. The relationship is essentially the connection between the sensor and motor, and this connection ought to be considered…

Aug 11, 2021↗

Basics 3 min read