Industrial Robotics Control Book
Knowledge is beautiful, but sharing it with others makes it a lot more special.
A few months ago, I decided to put together all my technical notes collected over a decade of work on designing control systems for robots: mathematical models, software architecture, and hardware electronics. Hopefully these notes will be helpful to all students, hobbyists, and engineers who are going to tackle the same technical problems I faced myself in the past.
The book was published by Apress, a Springer Nature subsidiary focused on tech communities, makers, and developers. Here’s the Amazon link: Industrial Robotics Control
A picture of the cover:
Some back cover information:
Build a complete control system for industrial robots, learning all the theory and practical tips from the perspective of an automation engineer. Explore the details of kinematics, trajectories, and motion control, and then create your own circuit board to drive the electric motors and move the robot.
The book starts by introducing the geometrical framework of homogeneous matrix algebra, which is then used to solve the kinematic model of a 6-axes manipulator, one of the most common robotic arms found in industrial settings. Solutions to other robots (Cobot, SCARA, Palletizer, Delta) are also presented in the Appendix.
After covering the theory, readers can put what they’ve learned in practice by programming a control firmware for the robot. Each software component is described in detail: from the HMI and the interpreter of motion commands, to the servo loop controller at the core of each servo drive. In particular, the author presents the commutation algorithm and the servo loop controller for brushless synchronous motors, which are typically employed in robotics applications. Readers will also learn how to calibrate the robot, commission it to the end-user, and design a digital twin to test and monitor the entire work cell in a safe simulated environment.
Next, the author shows how to make the robot move in space, by planning a smooth path and making sure it is safe to execute within the defined workspace, and by generating an optimal trajectory for the interpolated axes.
The book also briefly talks about machine vision and its application to robotics, because adding a vision system to a robot will greatly enhance its capabilities. Some typical functionalities of smart cameras are described, based either on analytical algorithms or on deep learning techniques.
Finally, the book delves into the hardware, covering how to select and use electric motors and encoders, how to build servo drives and motion controllers, and how to design your own PCBs. Different electronic components and their application circuits are analyzed, showing the advantages and drawbacks of each.
By the end of the book, you should be able to design and build electronic boards and write their core firmware to control any kind of industrial robot for all sorts of different practical applications.
Hope you enjoy the book, let me know your feedback.
Happy learning!
