Robotics

Robotics

A unified curriculum covering mathematical foundations, kinematics, sensing & perception, state estimation, control systems, path planning, and decentralized swarm coordination. 46 lessons, most with interactive canvas simulations, the rest deep-dive readings.

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Module 01

Foundations & Kinematics

  1. #01 Coordinate Frames & Transforms How a robot keeps track of where everything is, including itself
  2. #1.5 Orientation & Quaternions Why every drone, spacecraft, and VR headset secretly thinks in four dimensions
  3. #02 Robot Kinematics From joint angles to where the robot actually goes
Module 02

Sensing & Perception

  1. #03 Sensing the World Every robot's reality arrives as a stream of noisy numbers
  2. #04 Proprioception vs. Exteroception Knowing yourself versus knowing the world
Module 03

Control Systems

  1. #05 Feedback Control How a machine argues with reality, and wins, a thousand times a second
  2. #5.1 PID Control Three terms that run almost every machine you've ever touched
  3. #5.2 Transfer Functions One recipe card for every input a system will ever see
  4. #5.3 Poles & Zeros Two dots on a plane that decide whether your robot settles, sings, or self-destructs
  5. #5.4 Bode Plots Two semi-log graphs that show how a system answers slow questions versus fast ones
  6. #5.5 Nyquist Stability One squiggle in the complex plane decides whether your loop holds or screams
  7. #5.6 Root Locus A map of every place your poles can run as you crank the gain
  8. #5.7 State-Space Stop chasing one output at a time. Describe the whole machine as a single vector that knows where it's going next
  9. #5.8 Controllability & Observability Two yes/no questions that decide whether a robot can be driven, and whether it can be known
  10. #5.9 Observers Seeing the states you were never allowed to measure
  11. #5.91 Capstone: Motor Speed Control Close a PID loop around a real spinning thing and refuse to let the load win
  12. #5.92 Capstone: Inverted Pendulum The falling broomstick that every control engineer learns to catch
  13. #5.93 Capstone: Quadrotor Altitude Four spinning blades, one number to hold, and gravity pulling the whole time
Module 04

State Estimation & Filters

  1. #06 The Robot's Dilemma Why a moving robot is always a little bit lost
  2. #07 Complementary Filter Two sensors that lie in opposite directions, and the one line of code that makes them tell the truth
  3. #08 Kalman Filter The math that flew Apollo to the Moon
  4. #09 Particle Filter How a thousand wrong guesses find the truth
Module 05

Simultaneous Localization & Mapping

  1. #10 EKF SLAM How a robot draws the map and finds itself on it at the same time
  2. #11 Graph SLAM When the map is a bag of springs and you just let go
Module 06

Path & Motion Planning

  1. #12 Graph Search & Grid Planning How a robot finds the shortest way through a world it has never seen
  2. #13 Sample-Based Planning When the grid explodes, throw darts instead
Module 07

Introduction to Swarm Robotics

  1. #14 READ No Boss, No Problem How simple local rules conjure global intelligence, with nobody in charge
  2. #15 READ What Does a Robot Know? Why a robot that sees almost nothing can run a swarm of thousands
  3. #16 READ Graphs Are The Swarm Why the wiring diagram is the algorithm
Module 08

Swarm Behaviors & Formations

  1. #17 Boids Flocking Three rules, no leader, one mind
  2. #18 Potential Fields Let the landscape do the steering
  3. #19 Escaping Local Minima How a perfectly rational robot walks into a dead end and refuses to leave
  4. #20 READ Distance-Based Formations How a swarm holds its shape with no leader and no map
  5. #21 Cyclic Pursuit How a leaderless team surrounds a target with only local sensing
Module 09

Distributed Consensus & Task Allocation

  1. #22 Average Consensus How a crowd agrees on a number with nobody in charge
  2. #23 READ Laplacian Flow How agreement spreads like heat through a network
  3. #24 READ Gossip Consensus How a swarm agrees on the truth without ever holding a meeting
  4. #25 Rendezvous How a leaderless swarm agrees on a place to meet
  5. #26 READ Why Greedy Fails Why grabbing the nearest job wrecks the whole team
  6. #27 READ Auction Algorithm How robots divide the work by bidding against each other
  7. #28 READ Exploration vs Exploitation The slot-machine math that tells a swarm when to gamble
  8. #29 READ When Robots Lie Reaching agreement when some of the voters are adversaries
Module 10

Spatial Coverage & Exploration

  1. #30 Voronoi Coverage How a swarm divides the world into fair shares with Lloyd's algorithm
  2. #31 READ Frontier Exploration Always drive toward the edge of what you don't know
  3. #32 Pheromones & Stigmergy How a colony solves problems no single ant could
  4. #33 Swarm Sandbox Three good ideas, fighting for the wheel