We now know how to build our own robots in simulation and how to control them using the ROS framework. You have also learned how to handle complex robot tasks and how to communicate between multiple robots. All of these concepts were tested out virtually and you should be comfortable with them. If you're wondering how to get them working with real robots or to build your own robots and control them via the ROS framework, this chapter will help you achieve that.

Anyone interested in robotics would definitely be familiar with names such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi. Such boards can be used to control the robot actuators individually or in a control loop by reading the sensors connected to them. But what exactly are those boards? How are they used? How different are they from each other and why does it matter to choose such specific boards? The answers to these questions are quite rational and you should be able to answer them by the end of this chapter.

In this chapter, we shall see how such embedded control boards and computes can be used in ROS. You will begin by understanding how different microcontrollers and processors work, followed by an introduction to a series of such boards that are commonly used by the Robotics community with practical examples. Later, you will learn how to set up ROS on such boards and use them along with your custom projects.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• Understanding embedded boards
• Introduction to microcontroller boards
• Introduction to the Single Board Computer (SBC)
• Debian versus Ubuntu
• Setting up ROS on SBC
• Controlling GPIOs from ROS
• Benchmarking of SBC
• Getting started with Alexa and connecting with ROS