Programming

Linux Robotics (Tab Robotics)

Format: Paperback
Author: D. Jay Newman
ReleaseDate: 16 December, 2005
Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics
Rating:

How a robot should be built.

Using free (as in free beer) software from the internet you can make a robot that can be anything that you want with just a little thought. I have this book and it has more than enough information to build a very capable robot that makes most of those that you can buy a toy. The information is supplied in sections starting from some basic knowedge you can create a robot a piece at a time. The information covers movement - internal networking between indivual control modules to internet networking of the robot, to having the robot figure out where in the world or house it is and how does it get to where it needs to be. All the source code for the software is in the book and available from the authors site. It is a great starting place for a very potent robot.

Lots of Robotics, Not so much on Linux
Newman, the author of this book. Building Robots has become a fascination to a lot of people, including Mr. His robots are a long ways from C3PO. He basically build a robot mounted on wheels that has an awful lot of electronics. But then again he is including a lot of features in his design.

There are lot of ways to implement the controller. In this case he uses a small size but standard PC motherboard. On this board he runs a Linux operating system. In spite of the title, this is not really a book on how to use Linux to control robots. He just happens to use Linux for his robot because it is cheaper than Windows.

Most of the programming information he gives is the form of Java progrms that will handle the various devices (such as vision) that he wants built into his robots. In fact, much of the book, too much in fact, is given over to code. The code is available on line, reprinting it here in the book is pretty boring reading.

The book is a good introduction on how to design and build a robot using standard components. Here's how you can get started. .

Not a how-to book on "Linux Robotics".
Newman's book since his postings earlier last year on a robotics forum. I've been looking forward to Mr. I find the subject of incorporating a mini-itx computer with the Linux operating system into robots fascinating and I want to do the same. From this book, I understand he has working robots using this configuration. I'm sure I could learn a lot from Mr. Newman on this subject. I wish this book had provided insight into the pitfalls, tricks and details that a Microsoft Windows user could benefit from to accomplish his same results with Linux. I feel this book falls too short on the Linux content as implied by the book's current title. This would otherwise be a good book if it were renamed.

I found the mention of Linux related topics on approximately 25 out of 155 pages in this book. This is excluding the 119 pages of Java source code in Appendix A.

Chapter 1. Mentions Linux on 9 of 25 pages where the author describes in general terms that he is using Gentoo Linux and describes generalized reasons why you might want to use Linux.

Chapter 2. I didn't find any mention of Linux.

Chapter 3. Mentioned Linux on 3 of 15 pages. The author describes in general terms that a Linux motherboard can be a master node on the network. He discusses using USB devices with Linux.

Chapter 4. Mentioned Linux on 3 of 16 pages. He revealed that Linux is not a real-time operating system. Motherboards using the FTDI chipset seem to better support Linux. The author stated that he had to write a USB driver for Linux but gave no detailed information.

Chapter 5. I didn't find any mention of Linux.

Chapter 6. Mentioned Linux on 3 of 10 pages. In this chapter he describes where he found text to speech source code.

Chapter 7. Mentioned Linux on 1 of 15 pages. He mentions that some high-level open source vision systems are easier to work with under Linux than others. Another general comment was about video drivers for Linux.

Chapter 8. I didn't find any mention of Linux.

Chapter 9. Mentions Linux on 2 of 8 pages. He describes Joone as a nice Neural Network Interface that works under Windows and Linux. He admits that he runs his on a Windows laptop but it could run on Linux.

Chapter 10. Mentions Linux on 5 of 17 pages. The author's wireless Linksys network card is not part of the Linux kernel but is supported in Gentoo. This chapter makes other general comments regarding Linux, WiFi, and NFS.

I don't fault the author for this book; other materials in this book are of value to some readers. It makes a good introductory book for someone interested in learning about robotics topics. I respect Mr. Newman for his contributions to the robotics forums.

I do however fault Tab Books for the title and promotional material surrounding this book. I'll be wary of their books in the future. Perhaps a more appropriate title would be "My Robot Uses Linux" or "Java Robotics". This is not a how-to book on creating your own "Linux Robotics" projects.

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