There are a ton of resources on every imaginable aspect of robotics in the vast online robotics community. This vast amount of information might be overwhelming, especially if you are just beginning your study of robotics and are unsure of what to look for. With the help of this post, you may locate the appropriate websites with quality material. Four categories—courses, blogs, lectures, and podcasts—were used to organize the resources. I have a list of resources with descriptions for each topic. This ought to provide you with some helpful pointers as to where to begin so that you don’t get lost in the vast universe of online robotics content.
Note: Be sure to read my post on Where to Begin With Robotics if you want to learn robotics but are unsure of where to begin.
Robotics Courses Online
There are numerous sites that provide courses on numerous subjects. A few of them are even free. The same is true for robotics, hence the following is a selection of online robotics courses you can take:
The Construct: This is a platform designed specifically for learning ROS. On subjects like Robot Navigation, Machine Learning for Robotics, or Robot Manipulation, they offer a variety of courses. Limited access is available for free, but full access requires a monthly subscription charge. In addition to giving you access to all of their classes, this service also offers you an online development environment where you may complete your robotics projects.
Udemy: Numerous courses, such as ROS for Beginners: Basics, Motion, and OpenCV or ROS2 For Beginners, are available specifically for studying ROS. One course typically costs approximately $100.
The courses that have been offered thus far have a more practical focus. The following ones tend to concentrate more on theoretical ideas:
Coursera: Modern Robotics is one of the classes offered there and at the Northwestern University. Its emphasis is on robot dynamics, planning, and control as well as kinematics. The University of Pennsylvania’s Robotics program, on the other hand, focuses on teaching motion planning and perception, particularly for flying robots. You can sign up for both classes for free.
EDX: This platform has two really intriguing courses. The brilliant Bruno Siciliano instructs Robotics Foundations I: Robot Modeling and Robotics Foundation II: Robot Control (one of the authors of the Handbook of Robotics). The second one concentrates on robot control while the first one deals with dynamics and kinematics.
Robot Academy at QUT: The Queensland University of Technology’s amazing project offers a ton of quick educational movies. Videos are available on almost every subject, including sensors, 3D vision, dynamics/control, and robotics in relation to society and ethics.
If you want to be guided on your robotics learning path, enrolling in comprehensive courses like the ones mentioned above is a fantastic place to start. In this approach, everything is ready for you, so you don’t need to gather your knowledge from many sources.
Blogs About Robots
A excellent way to receive free information on specific subjects or issues is through blogs. Although frequently presented in a simpler, more understandable manner, the substance is typically less in-depth than in, example, university lectures. A list of useful robotics blogs is provided below:
The Robotics Back-End: This site offers some excellent guides for writing ROS code. There is already a lot of fascinating stuff available, particularly for ROS2.
Automatic Addison: This blog with a robotics concentration has a lot of posts. Writing really helpful tutorials on a range of specialized subjects including Computer Vision, Planning, ROS Basics, and much more, Addison Sears-Collins. The tutorials are mostly written for Python programming and are extremely realistically oriented.
The Construct: I have highlighted The Construct in the list of courses up there, but their blog also offers a good deal of free information. They focus on specific ROS-related questions the majority of the time.
Robotiq Blog: Robotiq is a business that specializes in various robotic grippers. In order to stay in touch with their clients, they also maintain a blog. Instead than being tutorial-focused, the content focuses on more basic robotics issues and the industry. You can read articles on Telepresence, robot screwdriving costs, or the greatest uses for robot force sensors. Even while it isn’t particularly focused on the development of robots, it nonetheless offers some fascinating industry insights.
We at AweRobotics.com make an effort to offer informative material to everyone who is curious about robots. Therefore, be sure to read my Robotics tutorials and other articles on this blog if you want to learn robotics in a more hands-on way.
Podcasts About Robotics
For my part, I adore podcasts. While I’m driving, doing chores around the house, or cooking, I enjoy listening to enlightening conversations. I won’t have to spend any more time doing things that way. The podcasts I find most fascinating are listed below:
The Lex Fridman show: Although he increasingly explores non-technical issues, Lex is a Machine Learning researcher at MIT and the most of the content is of a technical character. The lengthy, in-depth chats with so many outstanding guests are the main reason why the podcast is so well-liked. For our benefit, Lex also interviewed other outstanding roboticists for the podcast because robotics is one of his study interests. The ones starring Sergey Levine and Russ Tedrake are two of my favorites. Due to the unique interview style and in-depth discussions, this podcast is always enjoyable to listen to, regardless of the themes.
The University of California lecturer Pieter Abbeel: was already mentioned in the list of lectures for The Robot Brains Podcast. He also has a fantastic podcast where he does many fascinating interviews. Due to the nature of his research, he primarily works on artificial intelligence issues, frequently in the context of robotics.
Robohub Podcast: is produced by a group of volunteers. The interviewers are excellent at having sound technical conversations without getting bogged down in the finer points. This podcast presents a good chance to learn more about various robotics disciplines in which you lack much knowledge.
Sense Think Act Podcast: is presented by Open Robotics, the organization that created ROS, and is hosted by Audrow Nash. As the most technical podcast on this list, it occasionally delves quite deeply into the subjects. This podcast is a fantastic resource if you are already using ROS or intend to do so because some of the episodes focus on certain ROS packages (for example Moveit).
The Robot Report Podcast: This podcast focuses primarily on business and industry-related subjects and is generally less technical. However, they feature fascinating expert interviews in addition to stories about fascinating new businesses and current financing rounds. A useful method to stay informed on industry developments is to periodically listen to this podcast.
Robotics Lectures Online
The pandemic’s negative repercussions included an increase in online university courses. That’s fortunate for us because an increasing number of these courses have been videotaped and are now freely accessible. Remember that lectures at universities tend to be extremely theoretically oriented rather than practical in nature. You need have a strong foundation in mathematics to follow these courses. I’ll give some examples of robotics lectures that are well worth seeing below:
The Queensland University of Technology’s ENB339 Introduction to Robotics: this course covers the principles of robotics, including transformation matrices, forward and inverse kinematics, velocity, force, and the Jacobian matrix.
ENB339 Introduction to robot vision: is yet another QUT course that covers the fundamentals of computer vision. It addresses issues like image processing, color theory, image feature extraction, and picture geometry.
MIT 6.832 Underactuated robots: The brilliant Russ Tedrake discusses robot dynamics in this course. Robot dynamics is the study of how forces cause accelerations within the robot. This might sound a little dull, but along with robot kinematics, it is a basic to comprehending how the robot moves.
Robotics 2 at Sapienza University of Rome: The renowned Alessandro de Luca discusses robot control in this course. He discusses a wide range of subjects, beginning with position control and moving on to cartesian control, impedance control, and collision detection.
Advanced Robotics at UC Berkeley: Pieter Abbeel covers a wide range of robotics topics in this course that are a little more advanced. He discusses motion planning, kalman filters, optimization, linear optimum control, and even reinforcement learning. These terms are unfamiliar to you? After that, it’s time to attend the lecture!
Robotics programming (ROS) from ETH Zürich: The ROS programming language is introduced in this ETH course. It explains how to operate a robot in simulation, create control algorithms, and interact with sensors and actuators.
If you are very interested in a subject and want to understand the foundational ideas, lectures are an excellent option. They may be particularly helpful to those who have attended or are already enrolled in a college or university. Additionally, it can be fascinating for those who wish to determine whether a robotics-related degree is right for them.
Conclusion
If you know where to look, there is a wealth of excellent robotics learning material available online. Utilizing all available resources is a smart idea because different resources are helpful for different types of information. I sincerely hope you will find the lists useful, and as you move further, you will find a ton more fantastic information. Additionally, if you’re interested in beginning your own robots projects, look at the Top Projects to Learn All About Robotics. Thank you for reading, and please send us a note (via the contact form) if you have any thoughts or know of any more worthwhile sources.