[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Courses/textbook recommendations for studyin...
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Ask HN: Courses/textbook recommendations for studying robotics?
Hi HN, I am studying robotics and exoskeletons as a hobby. Can HN
please recommend high quality resources for self study?
Author : codeknight11
Score : 112 points
Date : 2023-04-04 15:25 UTC (7 hours ago)
| ForestCritter wrote:
| Well, from my experience in a partially automated factory
| 'wrangling the robots' I would do a little foray into 'things
| that can go wrong'. Our robot arms would periodically have 'robot
| revolt parties'. Watched a robot arm reach up and push a
| compressor right off a ten foot dead nest. It didn't drop it or
| fumble, it cleanly swept it right off. So many small things could
| trigger problems and sometimes the fixes were odd, like one robot
| refused to reset unless you opened and closed a certain one of
| the cage doors despite having done the proper reset process in
| the computer.
| anfractuosity wrote:
| I bought a 6DOF robot arm a while ago, which uses servos driven
| by PWM, which I found quite fun.
|
| It was only around PS70 for the servos + metal framework. I drive
| it with a Pi and a PCA9685 based I2C board.
|
| I was driving with a 5V supply, but it looks like the servos can
| run at 6V, which I need to try, as the bottom servo in the arm
| doesn't seem to have quite enough power.
|
| I'd like to sometime try to 'teach' it to draw with a pen
| (however badly), 'Inverse kinematics' feels rather scary though,
| so wonder if anyone might have any very basic tutorials on this.
|
| Tangentially related, I just bought 'The Ultimate Guide To DIY
| Animatronics' yesterday, which I'm looking forward to reading
| when it arrives.
|
| And have been watching a few videos on animatronics such as:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0R8-F4TmPI - 'Show and Tell:
| Animatronic Raven Kit!'
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNIfx0Xddzc - 'How Realistic
| Animatronics Are Made For Movies & TV | Movies Insider'
|
| Curious if anyone has any recommendations for videos/books in
| this area?
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| >'Inverse kinematics' feels rather scary though, so wonder if
| anyone might have any very basic tutorials on this.
|
| You might look into graphics programming and 3d modeling. For
| example Blender supports Inverse Kinematics for creating
| character animation.
| anfractuosity wrote:
| That sounds a good plan, I've played with Blender a little,
| only for very simplistic stuff, but will have to look into
| its IK support.
| gpm wrote:
| I'd be interested in a link to the arm you bought? (Or do you
| mean more along the lines of "designed"?)
| anfractuosity wrote:
| I bought from amazon, where it doesn't seem to be for sale
| any more, but it looks identical to -
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005380691351.html (the
| silver one), with MG996 servos.
| thomasthorpe wrote:
| Try the Robot Operating System documentation for the software
| and control side. If you can write the low level drivers then
| the ROS stack abstracts the IK and other middleware layers
| allowing you to focus on app and problem spaces.
|
| https://docs.ros.org
| anfractuosity wrote:
| Thanks, that sounds really interesting, will definitely have
| to try that out.
| TheHideout wrote:
| From a control system perspective:
|
| Nise - Control Systems Engineering:
| https://www.amazon.com/Control-Systems-Engineering-Norman-Ni...
|
| Friedland - Control System Design:
| https://www.amazon.com/Control-System-Design-Introduction-St...
| jfrd wrote:
| Are any subtopics particularly interesting to you?
|
| Mechatronics, Computer Vision, Control Theory, State Estimation,
| Path Planning, etc?
| auxym wrote:
| Second that.
|
| Similar questions get posted pretty often in engineering
| subreddits and it's difficult to answer as robotics is so
| multi-disciplinary.
|
| Very few people in this world are skilled enough in embedded
| programming, PCB design (motor control and sensors), materials
| and structures, dynamics and kinematics, controls and machine
| design (CAD, selecting manufacturing processes, selecting
| various COTS mechanical parts like actuators and bearings) to
| be a one-man-robot making orchestra.
|
| Advice to OP: pick a specialization to start with, and focus on
| learning that while using pre-made parts for the rest. For
| example, buy a ready-made robotic arm and write path planning
| and controls software to operate it. Or build your own CNC
| router/pick-and-place/3D printer/pen plotter but use off the
| shelf/open-source electronics and firmware.
|
| Once that's done, pick another specialty and move on to that if
| it interests you.
| antiviral wrote:
| Good advice.
|
| Can you recommend the names of any off-the-shelf robotic arms
| or tools that can be modified or hacked?
|
| Any good standard starting points for controller software?
| tomp wrote:
| I recently researched "cheap" (not really but not _super
| extra_ expensive) robot arms.
|
| (Disclaimer: I haven't bought any of them, so can't say
| anything about the quality.)
|
| UFactory Lite $3900 https://www.ufactory.cc/product-
| page/ufactory-lite-6-kit
|
| Dorna 2 $4200 https://dorna.ai/product/dorna-2/
|
| ReBeL cobot EUR5000
| https://www.igus.si/product/20962?artNr=REBEL-6DOF-01
|
| Interbotix https://www.trossenrobotics.com/robotic-
| arms/ros-research-ar...
|
| DOBOT $2700 https://www.trossenrobotics.com/dobot-
| mg400-industrial-deskt...
|
| Wlkata Mirobot $2000
| https://www.wlkata.com/products/professional-kit-of-
| wlkata-m...
| thomasthorpe wrote:
| The Niryo arm is a high quality kit with good software
| support package if not updated as often as it could be
|
| https://www.niryo.com
| jonathankoren wrote:
| There's plenty of toy arms for programming on every
| electronics site, including amazon. They're basically just
| a series of exposed hobby servos mounted together in a
| plastic skeleton. The motors are pretty much standard. You
| can even buy them with or without an control board.
|
| Buy an Arduino Mega or something. That way you'll have way
| more pins that you'll need, and shouldn't hit up against
| the memory limits. Arduinos have a huge community, and the
| free IDE has all libraries and everything you need. I
| bought one and an MP3 shield from AdaFruit last year and
| successfully made a GNK droid. complete with flashing
| lights and multiple modes of tranquil gonks.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Picking up this idea, someone should write a robotics version
| of "Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap"[0]. It's a
| seven volume series where basically you start with rocks,
| make a series of tools, and end up with a metal shop.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/19811050
| huevosabio wrote:
| Take a look at Stanford's Principles of Robotic Autonomy:
|
| http://asl.stanford.edu/aa274a/
| cashsterling wrote:
| Kevin Lynch's book is free and very good:
| http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/index.php/Modern_Robotics -
| someone already mentioned his course.
|
| The Robotics resources and texts by Peter Corke are good:
| https://petercorke.com/ -also has this good related course:
| https://robotacademy.net.au/
|
| "Controls Engineering in the FIRST Robotics Competition" by Tyler
| Veness is free and a good short reference: https://controls-in-
| frc.link/
|
| Also add the MIT Robotics Series books:
| https://mitpress.mit.edu/series/intelligent-robotics-and-aut...
|
| Algorithms for Decision Making is free and awesome:
| https://algorithmsbook.com/
|
| Also looks really good (MIT Press hardcopy):
| https://introduction-to-autonomous-robots.github.io/
| randcraw wrote:
| For mobile, "Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots" by
| Siegwart et al.
|
| For motion, "Principles of Robot Motion: Theory, Algorithms, and
| Implementations" by Choset, et al.
|
| It's telling that few new robotics textbooks have shipped in the
| past 10-15 years.
| GlenTheMachine wrote:
| The classic book for kinematics and dynamics is John Craig,
| Introduction to Robotics: Mechanics and Control, published by
| Pearson.
|
| Despite the title, it isn't a particularly good controls book.
| But it's the standard for kinematics.
| jaredandrews wrote:
| Learn thru experience and consider mentoring a FIRST robotics
| team in your area.
| pgorczak wrote:
| Nonlinear systems and control could be something that's useful to
| get into regarding legged robots or exoskeletons. It's not
| covered in depth by many general robotics textbooks but there's a
| great lecture including fantastic interactive notebook material
| at http://underactuated.mit.edu/
| ericdfoley wrote:
| If you're interested in perception, like tracking & freespace
| detection or SLAM, then "Probabilistic Robotics" by Thrun is
| pretty good. For a more fundamental take on that stuff (but less
| robotics specific), "Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning" by
| Bishop is my favorite.
| petrw wrote:
| The really big shift in ai in a sense was to reject the sense-
| model- plan- act cycle. I continue to see researchers assuming
| SMPA so although "everyone" knows this,"Intelligence without
| representation" by Brooks is essential. The alternative is sense-
| act in one layer, and model-plan over the top.
| egl2021 wrote:
| I apparently wasn't paying attention: can you elaborate on what
| it is that "everyone" knows?
| antegamisou wrote:
| This reply will focus mainly on the academics.
|
| Since you've mentioned exoskeletons, knowledge of kinematics and
| dynamics is imperative.
|
| Rotation Matrices, Forward/Inverse Kinematics, Denavit -
| Hartenberg Parameters, Lagrangian Mechanics are a few fundamental
| concepts one should be familiar with. Their applications mostly
| pertain to robotic manipulators (arms), which are what members of
| exoskeleton's are modeled after.
|
| They're covered extensively in the classic in the field textbook
| Robotics Modelling, Planning and Control by Siciliano, Sciavicco,
| Villani, Oriolo
|
| https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-84628-642-1
|
| They also require some prior knowledge of linear algebra to
| safely navigate through, so make sure you've achieved at least
| some math literacy before diving into them.
|
| Speaking of navigation, if you're interested in motion planning
| i.e. how to optimally (safely and efficiently) go from point A to
| point B, what you read is Planning Algorithms
| by Steven M. Lavalle
|
| http://lavalle.pl/planning/
|
| for various ways the math people have came up with to solve this.
| Many cool applications in fields outside of robotics like in
| Computer Graphics/Animation too.
|
| And btw, if there's one paper you'll absolutely have to read if
| you find yourself more interested in motion planning is
| Sampling-based Algorithms for Optimal Motion Planning by Sertac
| Karaman and Emilio Frazzoli
|
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/1105.1186.pdf
|
| in which the authors have revised two very popular path planning
| algorithms by making them significantly more optimal than their
| initial implementations were, and are part of many decision
| making systems that are involved in any type of mechanical
| movements.
|
| Some other comments talked about more advanced disciplines in the
| field like State Estimation or Reinforcement Learning but I
| believe the aforementioned (kimenatics/dynamics/motion planning)
| are the bare minimum before diving into even more advanced math-
| heavy concepts.
| mohsaad wrote:
| Probabilistic Robotics by Thurn/Burgard/Fox is basically the best
| resource for anything SLAM or planning related.
|
| Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Russell/Norvig is
| another good book for planning and AI.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| what about mechanical engineering resources as relates to
| robotics?
| techbro92 wrote:
| "Robotics dynamics algorithms" by Featherstone is a great book to
| read for modern forward and inverse dynamics and spatial vector
| algebra.
| jstmm wrote:
| Kevin Lynch has a great course "Modern Robotics: Mechanics,
| Planning, and Control Specialization" on coursera. It covers the
| key ideas in robotics at a high level (however it leaves out
| perception). I recommend it for people interested in getting
| started on this topic.
|
| https://www.coursera.org/specializations/modernrobotics#cour...
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