What this book covers

Chapter 1, The Foundation of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, explains what we will cover in this book, standard robot parts, concepts of control, computing in real time, and the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA) concept for how robots make decisions.

Chapter 2, Setting Up Your Robot, introduces you to motors, control systems, how to divide the robot problem into parts using the Subsumption Architecture, and the Robotics Operating System 2 (ROS 2).

Chapter 3, Conceptualizing the Practical Robot Design Process, describes systems engineering techniques for robot design, use cases, and storyboards.

Chapter 4, Recognizing Objects Using Neural Networks and Supervised Learning, explains how you can use CNNs to train object recognition and segment objects from the background.

Chapter 5, Picking Up and Putting Away Toys using Reinforcement Learning and Genetic Algorithms, covers Q-learning and genetic algorithms, which are used to teach the robot arm to move efficiently.

Chapter 6, Teaching the Robot to Listen, shows you how you can add a digital assistant to your robot and create some custom controls for it, including telling knock-knock jokes.

Chapter 7, Teaching the Robot to Navigate and Avoid Stairs, outlines how you can use another CNN to teach the robot to navigate around a house and avoid obstacles.

Chapter 8, Putting Things Away, describes how we can finish the robot’s tasks, and how to find the toybox.

Chapter 9, Giving the Robot an Artificial Personality, explains the concepts and theory around simulating a personality in a robot for added interactions.

Chapter 10, Conclusions and Reflections, talks about robotics as a career, based on the author’s own 40-year career in robot design.