Robotics Docs

Robotics, from first principles

Learn robotics in four short books.

Start with the basics of a robot arm, learn how a robot sees, then move on to the frameworks, simulators and methods used to make real arms work. Every chapter comes from the robotics-basics docs and follows their reading order.

4 books17 chapters71 sections30 h 45 min of reading
Start with Book 1
Book 1

Robot Arm Basics

Python, maths, frames, kinematics and arm types

Start here if you know nothing about robots. The Python and NumPy that robot code is written in, the angles, vectors and matrices an arm needs, frames and transforms, forward and inverse kinematics, and the common kinds of robot arm, with the six-joint arm in detail.

  1. Python and NumPy
  2. Angles, Vectors and Matrices
  3. Frames, Position and Transforms
  4. Forward and Inverse Kinematics
  5. Joints and Types of Arm
5 chapters · 10 sections · 2 h 50 min
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Book 2

Perception

Cameras, depth and finding objects

How a camera turns the world into pixels, how to turn pixels back into points, and how a robot finds an object and measures its size and pose, with the techniques, models and licences compared.

  1. Cameras
  2. Object Perception
2 chapters · 14 sections · 6 h 55 min
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Book 4

ROS and RViz

The robot software stack and its 3D viewer

What ROS is and how its programs talk to each other, one small program per idea, then a camera, an arm and the two together. It ends with RViz, the 3D viewer that shows you what the robot thinks is happening.

  1. ROS Basics
  2. RViz and the 3D View
2 chapters · 6 sections · 1 h 15 min
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How the books are organised

1

Books

Three books, each covering one broad area. Read them in order, or go straight to the one you need.

2

Chapters

Each chapter is one topic from the docs, such as ROS, cameras or gripping, and keeps its original order.

3

Sections

Each section is one document. The site marks the sections you have opened, so you can pick up where you stopped.