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In this package, you will find:

The author biography

A preview chapter from the book, Chapter 1 'Getting Started with
Raspberry Pi'
A synopsis of the books content
More information on Raspberry Pi Robotics Projects Second Edition

About the Author

Richard Grimmett has been fascinated by computers and electronics since his very
first programming project that used Fortran on punched cards. He has a bachelor's
degree and a master's degree in electrical engineering, and a PhD in leadership studies.
He has 26 years of experience in the radar and telecommunications industries and even
has one of the original Brick phones. He now teaches computer science and electrical
engineering at Brigham Young University-Idaho, where his office is filled with his many
robotics projects.

Raspberry Pi Robotics Projects

Second Edition
Robots seem to be everywhere these days. Not only in movies but also in our
day-to-day lives. They vacuum floors, play with children, and build automobiles.
These new machines are quickly migrating from university and government labs
to our homes, offices, schools, and playgrounds. A similar migration has occurred
in recent years with computers.
A good part of this migration, as in the case of computers, is that the untrained
but interested general population has been able to take part in the development
of these new machines. A big reason for this is the introduction of inexpensive
hardware and free, open source hardware. Initially, it was Arduino, an inexpensive
processor developed for the do-it-yourself crowd, which enabled normal people
to create robotics projects with complex functionality. More recently, Raspberry
Pi has extended this capability by providing an inexpensive, small, but powerful
Linux computer for these projects.
This second edition is designed to allow you to take full advantage of the capabilities
of Raspberry Pi in your robotics projects. It will not only teach you how to use the USB
port to add additional hardware capabilities, but it will also show you how to connect the
hardware to the GPIO as well. It will provide a step-by-step guide to get you well on your
way to building your very own amazing robotics projects.

What This Book Covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Raspberry Pi, helps you to power up your
Raspberry Pi, connect it to a keyboard, mouse, display, and remote computer,
and begin to access all that potential computing power.
Chapter 2, Programming Raspberry Pi, teaches you the basics of how
to program the Raspberry Pi, both in Python and in the C programming
languages.
Chapter 3, Providing Speech Input and Output, teaches your Raspberry
Pi to both speak and listen.
Chapter 4, Adding Vision to Raspberry Pi, shows you how to use standard
USB and Raspberry Pi cameras to allow your robotics projects to see.
Chapter 5, Creating Mobile Robots on Wheels, shows you how to connect
the Raspberry Pi to a mobile wheeled platform and control its motors, so your
robots can be mobile.

Chapter 6, Controlling the Movement of a Robot with Legs, teaches you how
to make your robot walk.
Chapter 7, Avoiding Obstacles Using Sensors, shows you how to sense the
world around you. Now that your robot is mobile, you'll want to avoid or
find objects.
Chapter 8, Going Truly Mobile The Remote Control of Your Robot, shows you
how to control your robot wirelesslyyou'll want your robot to move around
untethered by cables.
Chapter 9, Using a GPS Receiver to Locate Your Robot, shows you how to use
a GPS receiver so that your robot knows where it isif your robot is mobile,
it might get lost.
Chapter 10, System Dynamics, focuses on how to bring it all together to make
complex robots since you've got lots of capability.
Chapter 11, By Land, Sea, and Air, shows you how to add capabilities to robots
that sail, fl y, and even go under the water.

Getting Started with

Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi, with its low cost and amazing package of functionality, has taken the
robotic hobbyist community by Storm. Unfortunately, many, especially those new to
embedded systems and programming, can end up so discouraged that the board can
end up on the shelf, gathering dust next to the floppy disks and your old CRT.

Getting started
There is nothing as exciting as ordering, and finally receiving a new piece of hardware.
Yet things can go south quickly, even in the first few minutes. This chapter will,
hopefully, help you avoid the pitfalls that normally accompany unpacking and
configuring your Raspberry Pi. We'll walk through the process, answer many of the
different questions you might have, and help you understand what is going on. If you
don't go through this chapter, you'll not be successful at any of the others, and your
hardware will go unused, which would be a real tragedy. So, let's get started.

[1]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

One of the most challenging aspects of writing this guide is to decide the level at
which I should describe each step. Some of you are beginners, some have limited
experience, and others know significantly more in some of these areas. I'll try to be
brief but thorough, trying to detail the steps to take in order to be successful. So,
for this chapter, here are your objectives:

Unbox and connect the board to power

Connect a display, keyboard, and mouse

Load and configure the operating system

Access the board remotely

The Raspberry Pi comes in several flavors: the original A and B models, and the new
and improved A+ and B+ models. The B+ flavor is the most popular. It comes with
additional input/output capability, four USB connections, more memory, and will
be the flavor you'll focus on in this book. That does not mean that many, if not most,
of the projects here require the extra capability of the B+. As we go, I'll try and point
out when you'll need the additional capability of the B+, and when the Raspberry Pi
A+ might be enough. The Raspberry Pi now also comes in a B2 version. We'll not talk
about that specifically here, but there is no reason why the projects shouldn't work
with that version as well.
Here are the items you'll need for this chapter's projects:

A Raspberry Pi, Model B+

The USB cable to provide power to the board

A display with a proper video input

A keyboard, a mouse, and a powered USB hub

A microSD card at least 4 GB capacity

A microSD card writer

Another computer that is connected to the Internet

An Internet connection for the board

A LAN cable (if you are using the Raspberry Pi A+ you'll need a powered
USB hub, a wireless LAN connection, and a Wireless LAN device; you'll
learn how to configure this later in the chapter)

[2]

Chapter 1

The unboxing
The first step to building any project with Raspberry Pi is to become familiar with
Raspberry Pi itself. The Raspberry Pi comes in a box with a power cable. The
following image shows what the Raspberry Pi B+ board looks like:

And the next image is that of the Raspberry Pi A+ board:

[3]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Before plugging anything in, inspect the board for any issues that might have
occurred during shipping. This is normally not a problem, but it is always good to
do a quick visual inspection. You should also familiarize yourself with the different
connections on the board. Here is the B+ board, labeled for your information:

The labels for the A+ board are shown in the following image:

[4]

Chapter 1

Powering your board

Let's first power the board. To do this, you'll need to go through the USB client
connection. This is done by performing the following steps:
1. Connecting the microUSB connector end of the cable to the board.
2. Connecting the standard sized USB connector to either a PC, or a compatible
DC power source that has a USB connection. If you are connecting it to a
PC, the USB 2.0 standard requires only 500 mA be available. The USB 3.0
standard requires only 900 mA be available. This means that some computers
may not supply enough current for the Raspberry Pi to work correctly.
If you are going to use a DC power source at the standard USB connector end, make
sure that the unit can supply enough current. You'll need a supply that can provide
at least 1000 mA at 5 volts.
When you plug the board in, the PWR LED should be red. Here is a close up of the
LED locations, just so you're certain which one to look for:

If you've reached this point, congratulations! You're ready for the next step.

[5]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Hooking up a keyboard, mouse, and

display
Now that you know your board works, you're going to add peripherals so that it can
operate as a standalone computer system. This step is optional, as in the future, your
projects will often be in systems where you won't connect directly to the board with
a keyboard, mouse, and display. However, this can be a great learning step, and is
especially useful if you need to do some debugging on the system.
You'll need the following peripherals:

A USB mouse

A USB keyboard (this can be wireless, and can contain a built-in mouse pad)

A display that accepts HDMI or DVI-Video, although using a DVI input will
require an adapter

A powered USB hub (you will need this if you are going to use the Raspberry
Pi A+ version for the projects)

You may have most of this stuff already, but if you don't, there are some things to
consider before buying additional equipment. Let's start with the keyboard and
mouse. Most mice and keyboards have separate USB connectors. This normally
works fine for the Raspberry Pi model B+, as it has four USB ports. If you are going
to use the Raspberry Pi A+ model, you may want to choose a keyboard that has a
mouse pad built-in.
If you are using the Raspberry Pi A+ model, you will want to consider purchasing a
powered USB hub. Before deciding on the hub to connect to your board, you need to
understand the difference between a powered USB hub and one that gets its power
from the USB port itself. Almost all USB hubs are not powered, that is, you don't
plug in the USB hub separately. The reason for this is that almost all of these hubs are
hooked up to computers with very large power supplies and powering USB devices
from the computer is not a problem. This is not the case for your board. The USB
port on your board has very limited power capabilities, so if you are going to hook
up devices that require significant powera WAN adapter or webcam for
instanceyou're going to need a powered USB hub, one that provides power to
the devices through a separate power source. Here is an image of such a device,
available at www.amazon.com and other online retailers:

[6]

Chapter 1

Notice that on this hub, there are two connections. The one to the far right is a power
connection, and it will be plugged into a battery with a USB port. The connection to
the left is the USB connection, which will be plugged into the Raspberry Pi.
Now, you'll also need a display. Fortunately, your Raspberry Pi offers lots of choices
here. There are a number of different video standards; here is an image of some of
the most prevalent ones, for reference:

[7]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

There is an HDMI connector on the Raspberry Pi A+ and B+. To use this connector,
simply connect your cable with regular HDMI connections to Raspberry Pi and your
TV or monitor that has an HDMI input connector. HDMI monitors are relatively
new, but if you have a monitor that has a DVI input, you can buy relatively
inexpensive adapters that provide an interface between DVI and HDMI.
Don't be fooled by adapters that claim that they go from HDMI or DVI to VGA, or
HDMI or DVI to S-video. These are two different kinds of signals: HDMI and DVI
are digital standards, and VGA and S-video are analog standards. There are adapters
that can do this, but they must contain circuitry and require power, and are
significantly more expensive than any simple adapter.
You are almost ready to plug in the Raspberry Pi. Make sure you connect all your
devices before you power on the unit. Most operating systems support the hot-swap
of devices, which means you are able to connect a device after the system has been
powered, but this is a bit shaky. You should always cycle power when you connect
new hardware.
Even though your hardware configuration is complete, you'll still need to complete
the next section to power on the device. So, let's figure out how to install an
operating system.

Installing the operating system

Now that your hardware is ready, you need to install an operating system. You
are going to install Linux, an open-source version of Unix, on your Raspberry Pi.
Now Linux, unlike Windows, Android, or iOS, is not tightly controlled by a single
company. It is a group effort, mostly open-source, and while it is available for free,
it grows and develops a bit more chaotically.
Thus, a number of distributions have emerged, each built on a core set of similar
capabilities referred to as the Linux kernel. These core capabilities are all based
on the Linux specification. However, they are packaged slightly differently, and
developed, supported, and packaged by different organizations. Debian, Arch, and
Fedora are the names of some of the versions. There are others as well, but these are
the main choices for the distribution that you might put on your card.

[8]

Chapter 1

I choose to use the Raspbian, a Debian distribution of Linux, on my Raspberry Pi

projects for a couple of reasons. First, the Debian distribution is used as the basis for
another distribution, Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is arguably the most popular distribution
of Linux, which makes it a good choice because of the community support that it
offers. Also, I personally use Ubuntu when I need to run Linux on my personal
computer. It provides a complete set of features, is well organized, and generally
supports the latest sets of hardware and software. Having roughly the same version
on both my personal computer and my Raspberry Pi makes it easier for me to use
both as they operate, at least to a certain degree, the same way. That lets me try
some things on my computer before trying them on the Raspberry Pi. I've also found
that Ubuntu/Debian has excellent support for new hardware, and this can be very
important for your projects.
So, you are going to install and run Raspbian, on your Raspberry Pi.
There are two approaches to getting Raspbian on your board. The board is getting
popular enough for you to buy an SD card that already has Raspbian installed, or
you can download it onto your personal computer and then install it on the card. I'll
assume you don't need any directions if you want to purchase a cardsimply do an
Internet search for companies selling such a product.
If you are going to download a distribution, you need to decide if you are going
to use a Windows computer to download and create an SD card, a MAC OS X, or
a Linux machine. I'll give brief directions for the Windows computer and Linux
machines here. For directions on the MAC OS X, go to: http://www.raspberrypi.
org/documentation/installation/installing-images/mac.md.
First, you'll need to download an image. This part of the process is similar for both
Windows and Linux. Open a browser window. Go to Raspberry Pi organization's
website, www.raspberrypi.org and select the Downloads selection at the top of the
page. This will give you a variety of download choices. Go to the Raspbian section,
and select the .zip file just to the right of the image identifier. This will download an
archived file that has the image for your Raspbian operating system. Note the default
user name and password; you'll need that later.

[9]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

If you're using Windows, you'll need to unzip the file using an archiving program
like 7-Zip. This will leave you with a file that has the .img extension, a file that can
be imaged on to your card. Next, you'll need a program that can write the image to
the card. I use the Image Writer for Windows program. You can find a link to this
program at the top of the download section on the www.raspberrypi.org website.
Plug your card into the PC, run this program, and you should see this:

Select the correct card and image; it should look something like this:

Then click on the Write button. This will take some time, but when it is complete,
eject the card from the PC.

[ 10 ]

Chapter 1

If you are using Linux, you'll need to un-archive the file and then write it to the card.
You can do all of this with one command. However, you do need to find the /dev
device label for your card. You can do this with the ls -la /dev/sd* command.
If you run this before you plug in your card, you might see something like the
following screenshot:

After plugging in your card, you might see something like the following screenshot:

Note that your card is at sdb. Now, go to the directory where you downloaded the
archived image file, and use the following command:
sudo dd if=2014-09-09-wheezy-raspbian.img

[ 11 ]

of=/dev/sdX

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

The 2014-09-09-wheezy-raspbian.img command will be replaced by the image

file that you downloaded, and /dev/sdX will be replaced by your card ID in this
example, /dev/sdb. Be careful to specify the correct device as this can overwrite the
data on your hard drive. Also, this may take a few minutes. Once the file is written,
eject the card and you are ready to plug it into the board and apply power.
Make sure your Raspberry Pi is unplugged and install the SD card into the slot. Then
power the device. After the device boots, you should get the following screenshot:

You are going to do two things, and perhaps another, based on your personal
preference. First, you'll want to expand the file system to take up the entire card.
So, hit the Enter key, and you'll see the following screenshot:

[ 12 ]

Chapter 1

Hit Enter once again and you'll go back to the main configuration screen. Now select
the Enable Boot to Desktop/Scratch option, as shown in the following screenshot:

[ 13 ]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

When you hit Enter you'll see the following screenshot:

I prefer to select the middle option, Desktop Log in as user 'pi' at the graphical
desktop. It normally sets up the system the way I like to have it booted up. You
could also choose Console text console, require login (default). However, you will
need to log in whenever you want to access the graphical environment, for example,
when using the VNC server, which we will cover later.
The final choice you can make is to change the over clocking on the Raspberry Pi.
This is a way for you to get a higher performance from your system. However, there
is a risk that you can end up with a system that has reliability problems.

[ 14 ]

Chapter 1

I normally do a bit of over clocking, I'll select the Medium setting, as shown in the
following screenshot:

Once you are done, and are back to the main configuration menu, hit the Tab key
until you are positioned over the <Finish> selection, then hit Enter. Then, hit Enter
again so that you can reboot your Raspberry Pi. Now when you boot, your system
will take you all the way into the Windows screen.

[ 15 ]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi uses the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE)

Windows system, and should look like the following screenshot:

Now, when the graphical desktop system is up and running, you can bring up a
terminal by double clicking on the LXTerminal icon on the screen. You should end
up with a terminal window that looks like the following screenshot:

[ 16 ]

Chapter 1

Now you are ready to start interacting with the system!

Two questions arise: do you need an external computer during the creation of your
projects? and, what sort of a computer do you need? The answer to the first question
is a resounding 'yes'. Most of your projects are going to be self-contained robots with
very limited connections and display space; you will be using an external computer
to issue commands and see what is going on inside your robotic projects. The answer
to the second question is a bit more difficult. Because your Raspberry Pi is working in
Linux, most notably a version of Debian that is very closely related to Ubuntu, there
are some advantages to having an Ubuntu system available as your remote system.
You can then try some things on your computer before trying them in your embedded
system. You'll also be working with similar commands for both, which will help your
learning curve. You can even use a second Raspberry Pi for this purpose.

[ 17 ]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

However, the bulk of personal computers today run some sort of Windows operating
system, so that is what will normally be available. Even with a Windows machine,
you can issue commands and display information, so either way, it will work. I'll try
to give examples for both, as long as it is practical.

Accessing the board remotely

You now have a very usable Debian computer system. You can use it to access the
Internet, write riveting novels, balance your accountsjust about anything you
could do with a standard personal computer. However, that is not your purpose; you
want to use your embedded system to power your delightfully inventive projects.
In most cases, you will not want to connect a keyboard, mouse, and display to your
projects. However, you still need to communicate with your device, program it, and
have it tell you what is going on, and when things don't work right. You'll spend
some time in this section establishing remote access to your device.

Establishing Internet access on

Raspberry Pi B+
This section depends on an Internet connection with the Raspberry Pi. For the B+,
this is relatively easy. Simply connect the device to the LAN through the Ethernet
connection. If you don't have a wired LAN connection, or would prefer to connect
your device wirelessly, follow the instructions in the next section, Establishing Internet
access on the Raspberry Pi A+.

Establishing Internet access on

Raspberry Pi A+
The Raspberry Pi A+ does not have a LAN connection. To connect the Raspberry Pi
A+ to the Internet, you'll need to establish a wireless LAN connection. First, make
sure you have a wireless access point configured. You'll also need a wireless device.
See http://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters to identify wireless devices
that have been verified to work with the Raspberry Pi. Here is one that is available at
many online electronics outlets:

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Chapter 1

You'll also need to connect a powered USB hub for this process so that you can
access the wireless keyboard, as well as the USB wireless LAN device. Now, connect
the hub to the Raspberry Pi, and then connect your keyboard and the device to the
powered hub.
Boot the system, and then edit the network file by typing sudo nano /etc/
network/interfaces. You'll want to change it to look like this:

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Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

The wpa-ssid and wpa-psk values here must, of course, match what your wireless
access point requires. Reboot, and your device should be connected to your
wireless network.
If you are using a US keyboard, you may need to edit the keyboard
file for your keyboard to use nano effectively. To do this, type sudo
nano /etc/default/keyboard and change the XKBLAYOUT="gb"
to XKBLAYOUT="us".

Accessing your Raspberry Pi from your

host PC
Once you have established an Internet network connection with your device, you can
access it from your host computer. There are three ways you can access your system
from your remote computer:

The first is through a terminal interface called SSH.

The second way is by using a program called VNC Server. This allows you
to open a graphical user interface remotely that mirrors the graphical user
interface on the Raspberry Pi.

Finally, you can transfer files through a program called WinSCP, which
is custom made for this purpose. From Linux, you can use a program
called scp.

So, first, make sure your basic system is up and working. Open a terminal window,
and check the IP address of your unit. You're going to need this no matter how you
want to communicate with the system. Do this by using the ifconfig command. It
should look like the following screenshot:

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Chapter 1

You'll need the inet addr shown in the second line of the preceding screenshot to
contact your board through the Ethernet.
If you are using the wireless device to gain access to the Internet, your ifconfig will
look like this:

[ 21 ]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

The inet addr associated with the wlan0 connection, in this case 10.10.0.31, is the
address you will use to access your Raspberry Pi.
You'll also need an SSH terminal program running on your remote computer. An
SSH terminal is a Secure Shell Hypterminal (SSH) connection, which simply means
you'll be able to access your board and give it commands by typing them into your
remote computer. The response from the Pi will appear in the remote computer
terminal window. If you'd like to know more about SSH, try https://www.
siteground.com/tutorials/ssh/.
If you are running Microsoft Windows, you can download such an application. My
personal favorite is PuTTY. It is free and does a very good job of allowing you to
save your configuration so you don't have to type it in each time. Type putty in a
search window, and you'll soon come to a page that supports a download, or you
can go to www.putty.org.
Download PuTTY to your Microsoft Windows machine. Then, run putty.exe.
You should see a configuration window which looks something like the
following screenshot:

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Chapter 1

Type the inet addr from the previous page in the Host Name space, and make
sure the SSH selection is selected. You may want to save this configuration under
Raspberry Pi so you can reload it each time.
When you click on Open, the system will try to open a terminal window onto your
Raspberry Pi through the LAN connection. The first time you do this, you will get
a warning about an RSA key as the two computers don't know about each other.
Windows complains that a computer it doesn't know is about to be connected in a
fairly intimate way. Simply click on OK, and you should get a terminal with a login
prompt, like the following screenshot:

Now you can log in and issue commands to your Raspberry Pi. If you'd like to do
this from a Linux machine, the process is even simpler. Bring up a terminal window
and then type ssh pi@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the inet
addr of your device. This will then bring you to the login screen of your Raspberry
Pi, which should look similar to the preceding screenshot.
SSH is a really useful tool to communicate with your Raspberry Pi. However,
sometimes you need a graphical look at your system, and you don't necessarily want
to connect a display. You can get this on your remote computer using an application
called vncserver. You'll need to install a version of this on your Raspberry Pi by
typing sudo apt-get install tightvncserver in a terminal window on your
Raspberry Pi. This is a perfect opportunity to use SSH, by the way.

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Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Tightvncserver is an application that will allow you to remotely view your complete
Windows system. Once you have it installed, you'll need to start the server by typing
vncserver in a terminal window on the Raspberry Pi. You will then be prompted for
a password, to verify the password, and then asked if you'd like to have a view only
password. Remember the password you entered, you'll need it to remotely log in via
a VNC Viewer.
You'll need a VNC Viewer application for your remote computer. On my Windows
system, I use an application called RealVNC. When I start the application, it gives
me the following screenshot:

Enter the VNC Server address, which is the IP address of your Raspberry Pi,
and click on Connect. You will get this pop-up window, as shown in the
following screenshot:

Type in the password you just entered while starting the vncserver, and you
should then get a graphical view of your Raspberry Pi that looks like the
following screenshot:

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Chapter 1

You can now access all the capabilities of your system, although they may be slower
if you are doing graphics-intense data transfer. Just a note: there are ways to make
your vncserver start automatically on boot. I have not used them; I choose to type
the vncserver command from an SSH application when I want the application
running. This keeps your running applications to a minimum and, more importantly,
provides for fewer security risks. If you'd like to start yours each time you boot, there
are several places on the Internet that will show you how to configure this. Try the
following website: http://www.havetheknowhow.com/Configure-the-server/
Run-VNC-on-boot.html.

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Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

To view this Raspberry Pi desktop from a remote Linux computer, running Ubuntu
for example, you can type sudo apt-get install xtightvncviewer and then start
it using xtightvncviewer 10.25.155.110:1 and supplying the chosen password.
Linux has viewers with graphical interfaces such as Remmina Remote Desktop
Client (select VNC-Virtual Network Computing protocol), which might be used
instead of xtightvncviewer. Here is a screenshot of the Remote Desktop Viewer:

Make sure vncserver is running on the Raspberry Pi. The easiest way to do this is to
log in using SSH and run vncserver at the prompt. Now, click on Connect on the
Remote Desktop Viewer. Fill in the screen as follows; under the Protocol selection,
choose VNC, and you should see the following screenshot:

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Chapter 1

Now enter the Host inet address, making sure you include a :1 at the end, and then
click on Connect. You'll need to enter the vncserver password you set up, like the
following screenshot:

[ 27 ]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Now you should be able to see the graphical screen of the Raspberry Pi, like this:

The final piece of software that I like to use with my Windows system is a free
application called WinSCP. To download and install this piece of software, simply
search the web for WinSCP and follow the instructions. Once installed, run the
program. It will open the following dialog box:

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Chapter 1

Click on New, and you will get the following screenshot:

[ 29 ]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Here you fill in the IP address in the host name tab, pi in the user name tab,
and the password (not the vncserver password) in the password space. Click on
Login and you should see the following warning displayed, as shown in the
following screenshot:

The host computer, again, doesn't know the remote computer. Click on Yes, and then
the application will display the following screenshot:

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Chapter 1

Now you can drag and drop files from one system to the other. You can also do
similar things on Linux using the command line. To transfer a file to the remote
Raspberry Pi, you can use the scp file user@host.domain:path command, where
file is the file name, and user@host.domain:path is the location you want to copy
it to. For example, if you wanted to copy robot.py from your Linux system to the
Raspberry Pi, you would type scp robot.py pi@10.25.155.176:/home/pi/.The
system will ask you for the remote password; this is the login for the Raspberry Pi.
Enter the password, and the file will be transferred.
Now that you know how to use SSH, tightvncserver, and scp, you can access your
Raspberry Pi remotely without having a display, keyboard, or mouse connected
to it! Now your system looks like the following image (if you are using the
Raspberry Pi B+):

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Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Or this (if you are using the Raspberry Pi A+):

You only need to connect the power and the LAN, either with a cable, or through
wireless LAN. If you need to issue simple commands, connect through SSH. If you
need a more complete set of graphical functionality, you can access this through
vncserver. Finally, if you want to transfer files back and forth, you can use WinSCP
from a Windows computer or scp from a Linux computer. Now you have the toolkit
to build your first capabilities.
One of the challenges of accessing the system remotely is that you need to know the
IP address of your board. If you have the board connected to a keyboard and display,
you can always just run ifconfig command to get this info. But you're going to use
the board in applications where you don't have this information. There is a way to
discover this by using an IP scanner application. There are several available for free;
on Windows, I use an application called Advanced IP Scanner. When I start the
program, it looks like the following screenshot:

[ 32 ]

Chapter 1

Clicking on the Scan selector, scans for all the devices connected to the network. You
can also do this in Linux; one application for IP scanning in Linux is called Nmap. To
install Nmap, type sudo apt-get install nmap. To run Nmap, type sudo nmap
-sp 10.25.155.1/154 and the scanner will scan the addresses from 10.25.155.1
to 10.25.155.154. For more information on Nmap, see: http://www.linux.com/
learn/tutorials/290879-beginners-guide-to-nmap. These scanners can let
you know which addresses are being used, and this should then let you find your
Raspberry Pi address without typing ipconfig.
Your system has lots of capabilities. Feel free to play with the systemtry to get
an understanding of what is already there, and what you'll want to add from a SW
perspective. One advanced possibility is to connect the Raspberry Pi through a wireless
LAN connection, so you don't have to connect a LAN connection when you want to
communicate with it. There are several good tutorials on the Internet. Try http://
learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/
setting-up-wifi-with-occidentalis or http://www.howtogeek.com/167425/
how-to-setup-wi-fi-on-your-raspberry-pi-via-the-command-line/.

Remember, there is limited power on your USB port, so make sure that you are
familiar with the power needs of accessories plugged into your Raspberry Pi. You
may very well need to use a powered USB hub for many projects.
[ 33 ]

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Summary
Congratulations! You've completed the first stage of your journey. You have
your Raspberry Pi up and working. No gathering dust in the bin for this piece of
hardware. It is now ready to start connecting to all sorts of interesting devices, in
all sorts of interesting ways. You would have, by now, installed a Debian operating
system, learned how to connect all the appropriate peripherals, and even mastered
how to access the system remotely so that the only connections you need are a
power supply cable and a LAN cable.
Now you are ready to start commanding your Raspberry Pi to do something. The
next chapter will introduce you to the Linux operating system and the Emacs text
editor. It will also show you some basic programming concepts in both the Python
and C programming languages. Then you'll be ready to add open source software
to inexpensive hardware and start building your robotics projects.

[ 34 ]

Get more information Raspberry Pi Robotics Projects Second Edition

Where to buy this book

You can buy Raspberry Pi Robotics Projects Second Edition from the
Packt Publishing website.
Alternatively, you can buy the book from Amazon, BN.com, Computer Manuals and most internet
book retailers.
Click here for ordering and shipping details.

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