Robotics

This textbook introduces robotic theories and technologies to audiences, including university students, professionals with engineering backgrounds, and also high school students with interests in building their own robots. We aim to bridge the gap between classic theories and real-world applications of robotic manipulators, which, to date, have far exceeded the domain of conventional industry. The contents are divided into three parts. The former two cover classic theories of robotics, including kinematics, dynamics, path planning, control, and programming. Specifically, Part 1 is an introduction targeting junior students, featuring more simplistic topics and examples. Part 2 provides the senior students and professionals with more in-depth discussions on critical topics and more comprehensive examples. In Part 3, we demonstrate how classic robotics theory can be extended to more advanced theoretical frameworks and adopted in real-world applications beyond conventional industries. This textbook is valuable to broad readers, including those who have limited background in general engineering and wish to explore non-conventional applications of robotic manipulators. The scaffolded contents from Part 1 to Part 3 are created to lower the prerequisites and smooth the learning curve.