1st Edition
Foundations of Robotics Mechatronics, Cybernetics, and AI
Introduction
Part I: Mechatronics - Building Robots
Chapter 1. Building Robots
Chapter 2. Programming Robots
Chapter 3. Working with Space and Time
Chapter 4. Mechanics
Chapter 5. Electromagnetism
Chapter 6. Sensors
Part II: Cybernetics - Controlling Robots
Chapter 7. Controlling Behaviours
Chapter 8. Kinematics and Inverse Kinematics
Chapter 9. Dynamics and Inverse Dynamics
Chapter 10. Digital Control of Dynamics Trajectories
Part III: Aritifical Intelligence (AI) - Automating Robots
Chapter 11. Probabilistic AI
Chapter 12. Tracking, Localisation and Mapping
Chapter 13. Planning
Chapter 14. Neural Networks
Chapter 15. Robot Vision
Chapter 16. Transformers and Foundation Models
Biography
Charles Fox is the Programme Leader of MSc Robotics and AI at the University of Lincoln, UK. The programme provides a unified approach linking traditional Computer Science and Engineering topics with modern AI. He served as the programme chair of the UK’s robotics and AI conference, TAROS, in 2021. Fox advises leading venture capital, investment bank, and private equity firms on AI strategy and implementation. He studied MA Computer Science at Cambridge, MSc Informatics at Edinburgh, and DPhil Information Engineering at Oxford. He has won teaching awards from students and universities and is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications and the book ‘Computer Architecture: from the stone age to the quantum Age’ with No Starch Press.
Jonathan Aitken is Senior University Teacher in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Sheffield, UK. Previously as a Research Fellow he worked in the Autonomous Control Laboratory within the Autonomous Systems and Robotics Group of the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering. His research focuses on autonomous reconfiguration of robotic systems, especially on quadcopter platforms. Dr Aitken holds an MEng and PhD in Electronic Engineering, both awarded by the University of York. He has previously worked in the Computer Science Department at the University of York’s High Integrity Systems Engineering Group, working on safety in Systems-of-Systems.
