Programming the Beaglebone

Be the chief of BeagleBone programming by doing simple electronics and Internet of Things projects

About This Book

Quickly develop electronics projects that interact with Internet applications using JavaScript and Python

Learn about electronics components such as sensors and motors, and how to communicate with them by writing programs

A step-by-step guide to explore the exciting world of BeagleBone-from connecting BeagleBone to doing electronics projects and creating IoT applications

Who This Book Is For

If you want to learn programming on embedded systems with BeagleBone by doing simple electronics projects, this book is for you. This book is also helpful to BeagleBone owners who want to quickly implement small-scale home automation solutions. It is assumed that you have familiarity with C and Python programming. Some familiarity with electronics is helpful but not essential.

What You Will Learn

• Connect your BeagleBone to a computer in different ways and get the Cloud9 IDE running to quick-start programming on the BeagleBone


• Get to know about BeagleBone extension pins such as GPIO and how to connect various electronics components with BeagleBone


• Read and write to various electronics components such as LED, Push-button, sensors, and motors


• Grasp in-depth theory on Analog, PWM, and BUS programming and the electronics components used in programs


• Handle data to and from various BUS supporting modules such as UART, I2C, and SPI using the Adafruit BBIO Python library


• Write real-life IoT applications in JavaScript and Python such as shooting an e-mail on overheat and controlling a servo motor remotely


• Make use of online free cloud services to store and analyze sensor data collected on the BeagleBone


• Discover what else can be done using the BeagleBone


• Get to grips with embedded system BUS communication

In Detail

The whole world is moving from desktop computers to smartphones and embedded systems. We are moving towards utilizing Internet of Things (IoT). An exponential rise in the demand for embedded systems and programming in the last few years is driving programmers to use embedded development boards such as Beaglebone.

BeagleBone is an ultra-small, cost-effective computer that comes with a powerful hardware. It runs a full-fledged Debian Linux OS and provides numerous electronics solutions. BeagleBone is open source and comes with an Ethernet port, which allows you to deploy IoT projects without any additions to the board. It provides plenty of GPIO, Anlaog pins, and UART, I2C, SPI pins which makes it the right choice to perform electronics projects. This gives you all the benefits of Linux kernel such as multitasking, multiusers, and extensive device driver support. This allows you to do programming in many languages including high-level languages such as JavaScript and Python.

This book aims to exploit the hardware and software capabilities of BeagleBone to create real-life electronics and IoT applications quickly. It is divided into two parts. The first part covers JavaScript programs. The second part provides electronics projects and IoT applications in Python.

First, you will learn to use BeagleBone as tool to write useful applications on embedded systems. Starting with the basics needed to set up BeagleBone and the Cloud9 IDE, this book covers interfacing with various electronics components via simple programs. The electronics theory related to these components is then explained in depth before you use them in a program. Finally, the book helps you create some real-life IoT applications.

Yogesh Chavan

Yogesh Chavan is a Linux enthusiast and open source promoter, living in Pune, India. He has now been teaching operating systems, device drivers, and embedded systems in colleges and institutes for more than three years. These include the computer science department of Pune University, Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research (SICSR) college, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) institute. He has about six years of experience in the software industry. His previous industrial role was of a software maintenance engineer at Red Hat Software Services. Yogesh has overseen many engineering projects under GEEP (http://www.geeksofpune.in). He has given many talks at the annual open source event, GNUnify (http://gnunify.in). Yogesh enjoys cutting edge technologies. He is a hardware hobbyist who likes playing with smartphones, tablets, routers, and Arduino. He is big fan of Android and various Linux distributions. He has compiled and modified kernel and firmwares for many phones and routers. He wishes to be a humble contributor to the open source world.