Practical Arduino Engineering

Arduino boards have impressed bothhackers and professional engineers. Whether you're a hobbyist or a professional,it isn't just a breadboard and a hazy idea that keeps you going. It's essential to institute a proper design, device instrumentation and, indeed, test your project thoroughly before committing to a particular prototype. Practical Arduino Engineering begins by outlining the engineering process, from the basicrequirements andpreliminary design to prototyping and testing. Each and every chapter exemplifies this process anddemonstrates howyoucan profit from the implementationsolid engineering principlesregardless of whether you just play in your basement or you want to publicize and sell your devices. Arduino is a brilliant prototyping platform that allows users to test and iterate design ideas. Imitation by other Arduino makers, hackers and engineers oftenproves your design's popularity. Practical Arduino Engineeringwill teachyou to follow the engineering processcarefully; over time, you will be able to review and improve this process, and even extend its scope. Practical Arduino Engineering is notpurely theoretical. In addition, you'll learn the process of hardware engineering as applicable to Arduino projects, and the importance of the process in each and every projectpresented in this book. To set the stage, Practical Arduino Engineering begins by reviewing the Arduino software landscape,then shows howto set upan Arduino project for testing. Even if you already know your compiler toolchain and the basics of Arduino programming, this refresher course can helpfill inthe gaps andexplain whyyour compiler mayspit out certain error messages. Practical Arduino Engineering then gradually builds up the engineering process, from single devices like LCDs, potentiometers and GPS modules, to the integration of several modules intolarger projects, such as a wireless temperature measurement system, and ultimatelyan entire robot. The engineering projects become progressively more challenging throughout the first 4 engineering chapters. Next, you'll proceed with simple steps towards the first intelligent part of a robot:the object detector. You'll find yourself teaching your robot how to avoid very hot objects or insurmountable obstacles. The basic design requirements for a complete robot and, indeed, the detailed design and prototyping for robots can be extremely tricky, which is why engineering discipline is invaluable. Practical Arduino Engineering thenenters the world of domestic engineering by introducing home alarm systemsnot quite as simple as they seem. A solid, robust system can only be built by following the engineering processdetailed inprevious chapters, and this section reinforces that process. You'll thentake a step further in your Arduino engineering process: instrumentation and control, and some error messaging using GSM. Control is introduced via the Xbox controller, a very powerful piece of technology able to play a considerable role in robotics projects.Having already learned to control motion andto sense and avoid objects, you'll learn how todebug your Arduino projects of varying complexities via the hardware instrumentation software LabVIEW. To complete the journey into Practical Arduino Engineering, you'll discover how to use a special Arduino board to rely on Bluetooth Mate Silver for control of domestic and mobile Arduino projects. Using Bluetooth Mate Silver, you'll learn to implement basic engineering design with almost any Arduino project, andbe able to justify, build, debug, and extend Arduino-based designs using a solid engineering approach. Please note: the print version of this title is black & white; the eBook is full color.