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The Definitive Guide To Building Java Robots

The Definitive Guide To Building Java Robots

On sale NOW! Pick up a copy it will contain all the information used to program Feynman5.

I have moved the source code for the book to SourceForge.Net. From there you can join the development team, enter support request, join forums, and much more.

Check out the review at Robots.Net - By Jim Brown

Book Information

Table of Contents

  1. A Primer - Here I talk about some of the basics of robotics like a Micro Controllers, your IDE (Integrated Development Environment) Java Basics, etc.
  2. Serial Communication - Here I talk about using the Java Communications API and use with a USB Adapter
  3. Motion - Here I talk about using motors and servo controllers for drive systems and using robotic arms
  4. Sensors - Here I talk about using sonar, infrared, and a digital compass. I also talk about how you interface these with a Java program using serial communications.
  5. Speech - Here I talk about using Java Speech API, Free TTS (Text-To-Speech) and wrapping the Microsoft Text-To-Speech implementation and the Microsoft Speech Recognizer.
  6. Vision - Here I cover the basics of machine vision, and use a color matching mechanism that takes the ratios of colors into consideration for identifying cans of Coke, Pepsi, and 7-UP.
  7. Navigation - Here I talk about simple navigation, indoor navigation using graph theory, and outdoor navigation using GPS
    8. Other Topics - Here IU add other things like MySQL, Groovy scripting, ANT, using a task scheduler or CRON to scheduled task for your robot
  8. Sample Programs - Here I create some sample software combining all of the software from the other chapters.

Appendices

  1. Definitive Guide API (Author's Software)
  2. Microcontroller Reference
  3. Robot Parts Reference

Tips & Updates

Chapter 2

  • Java(tm) Communications API Home Page - For some reason SUN removed the Communications API for Windows from their site. Here it is: javacomm20-win32.zip.
  • Tip - Remember when setting up the Java Communications API you have the right JAVA_HOME, use 'System.getProperty("java.home",".");, the comm.jar & javax.comm.properties go in the %JAVA_HOME%/lib directory, and Win32com.dll goes in the %JAVA_HOME%/bin directory.
  • Tip - For the DLink & EB500 some other tips. Remember to install and update the current driver (my driver).

Chapter 6

  • MultiFormat - In version 1.1.1, I have included support for multiple encoding formats RGB & YUV, as well as all supported resolutions for the camera, so there is no need to resize captures for performance.
  • WebCamViewer2 - I have added a simpler webcam viewer that does not rely on the GrabFrame class. You can get this from SourceForge.Net CVS. it's in the com.scottpreston.javarobot.extras package.

Updated API

I have been working on an updated API and complete software suite for programming robots in Java using a combination of Java, PHP, JavaScript, and .Net (C#). I have talked about some things in various articles on this site, but plan on releasing more as I get the time. Please contact me if you would like to know more information about this.

Links

Here are some links to sites I reference in the book.
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