Dear ROS community,
my new book “Robotics for Software Engineers” is available in early access since last week.
Although ROS2 will be first introduced two chapters ahead (chapter 5), I want to make this announcement already today because the publisher, Manning, has selected my book as Deal of the Day. Thus you can save 45% until midnight (US Eastern time) today (Feb 7th 2022):
In case you read this post later, here is the direct link to the book. Feel free to send me a PM via LinkedIn or Twitter, I might still have some personal discount codes available.
Publishing the book in early access allows me to incorporate feedback before the final version is published. Although the chapters undergo a proper editing process before they get published into MEAP, the most important feedback is that by the intended audience. Most importantly, the book must provide value for the readers. Hence I’m very much looking forward to your feedback, either here, via PM or using the MEAP discussions forum that accompanies the book.
Table of Contents:
Part 1: The Big Picture
1 Robotics or Bits Meet Atoms
2 Robots from a Software Point of View
3 Robot Software Systems
Part 2: Fundamentals
4 Robot Motion Fundamentals
5 Robotics Libraries, Frameworks and Tools
6 Virtual Robots: Simulators
7 Manipulation
8 Navigation
Part 3: More Capabilities
9 Task Planing and Execution
10 Sensors and Sensing
11 Artificial Intelligence in Robotics
Part 4: Applications
12 Application I: Flexible Assembly Cell
13 Application II: Goods-To-Person Logistics
14 Application III: Drone Analytics
15 Application IV: Fetch and Deliver
Part 5: In Practice
16 Robot Software Architecture
17 Robot Software Engineering
18 Working with Real Robots
Part 6: A Few More Things
19 More Awesome Robotics Topics
Appendixes
Appendix A: Installation Instructions
Appendix B: Minimal Recaps
Appendix C: Real Robots for Your Projects
In case you wonder why I spend many many hours writing a new robotics book, here is a short answer:
Robotics for Software Engineers is neither an academic robotics book that drowns the reader in advanced math, nor a “build your own (toy) robot” book (often mostly about mechanics and electronics plus a few lines of Arduino code), nor a “learning ROS” book. It is a book written for software developers that are interested in quickly getting an overview of what makes robot software different from other kinds of software and gets them up to speed. They are either considering getting into robotics or have already moved into this field recently. Of course, makers and ambitious free time roboticists are welcome, too. The book will teach you ROS2, but foremost it teaches you robotics software and uses ROS2 to make it concrete and hands-on.
My book is not a substitute for these other types of books, of course, but in my opinion it fills a gap that I have perceived since many years whenever I wanted to hand one book to people that already know software, but have no prior knowledge of robotics and to get into it. I don’t want them ending up confusing a specific implementation in ROS with the general robotics concept or them forever being afraid of robotics due to having picked up a book oriented towards people that studied or even graduated about robotics.
Best,
Andreas