| I've read the book / finished the course.
What this course doesn't teach you: getting sensor data, figuring out the environment ( this part is called mapping ) from your sensor input ( for ex. locating feature points / getting 3d position of these points from a stereo camera ), locating your own position from the sensor data. In short it doesn't teaches you SLAM ( simultaneous localization and mapping ), which is a good thing, because that is a very big subject. What it teaches you: - basics of robotics ( movement freedom, a little bit of topology ) - math necessary for robotics ( describing rotation and displacement in a single matrix, representation of rotations around a point, representation of forces on a body, solving differential equations given these things ) - robot kinematics: what will be the end position if my joint angles are x ( forward kinematics ), what should the joint angles be if my end position is x ( inverse kinematics ) - robot dynamics: same thing like kinematics, but positions => forces/torques. I think this is the hardest part of the whole subject. Although these problems can be solved in a close form, it's not practical, and you'll need some physics knowledge to be able to comprehend everything. Nothing really fancy, it's just needs more time if you physics is not up to this level. - control: controlling those robots with motors. Describes feedback / feedforward control. In short: if you have a good enough model, then it's not that hard to control a robot, since you only have to control the 'difference' between your model and reality. - Path planning with obstacles - Generating control for paths ( your robot has physical constraints, for ex. it takes time to accelerate. You have to take those things into considerations ) - How to make your robot follow a path / how to make paths with physical constraints ( for ex. a car can not go sideways ) - Grasping I'd say the book is pretty awesome, it's between the line of academic-too high level, and in a good way. You won't be a pro after reading it, since almost every problem gets harder in reality, but you'll get a good enough understanding which will make diving into a subject easy. Lot of excersizes. Also, it is very readable, I haven't lost myself in any of the parts. Another good thing I've found that it's easy to just skim trough the book, and have general understanding. The youtube videos help a lot with that, I'll suggest you watch them before/after reading a chapter. |