Introduction to Robotics Engineering: An Illustrated Guide Mechanisms, Sensors, Motors, and Control Systems for Beginners, Students, Hobbyists

ONE MACHINE. ONE ARGUMENT. FIFTEEN CHAPTERS THAT ACTUALLY CONNECT. Most robotics courses deliver kinematics, dynamics, actuators, sensing and control as five separate subjects. The student finishes competent at each and unable to design anything. This book takes a different route: it follows a single two-link arm, with a 0.400 m upper link, a 0.300 m forearm and a 2.00 kg payload, from the first frame assignment to a complete safety assessment, and every number computed early is used again later. The inertia matrix built in Chapter 8 sizes the motor in Chapter 11 and supplies the feedforward term in Chapter 13. The Jacobian derived in Chapter 6 returns as a statics tool, a singularity test and a speed limit on a planned path. Nothing is introduced twice, and nothing is introduced that is not used. WHAT IS INSIDE - Fifteen chapters in five parts: foundations (what a robot is, frames and rotations, homogeneous transforms and the Denavit-Hartenberg convention), motion (forward and inverse kinematics, the Jacobian, statics), force and hardware (dynamics, structure and resonance, motors, transmissions and motor sizing), sensing and control (encoders and IMUs, PID and feedforward, trajectories and planning), and the whole machine (integration, power budgets, commissioning and safety).- 195 original full-colour vector figures in a fixed palette where colour carries meaning: blue for sensing, orange for actuation, green for control, grey for structure.- 74 fully worked examples with every arithmetic step printed and every unit carried through every line.- 120 practice problems, eight per chapter, each with a complete worked solution in the back matter.- 48 numbered tables, a formula reference, an SI units and conversions appendix, a 76-term glossary, an IEEE reference list and a 160-entry index.- Safety standards named with issuing body, edition and date, including the 2025 editions of ISO 10218-1 and 10218-2 and the 2024 edition of ISO 13855. WHAT THE ARITHMETIC RETURNS >WHO IT IS FOR Undergraduates taking a first robotics course, self-directed readers working alone, and practising engineers who have been handed a robot and need to understand what is inside it. A first course in mechanics and a working knowledge of matrices, trigonometry and elementary calculus is assumed. No prior exposure to robotics, control theory or electrical engineering is required. The book contains no code and is not a programming guide; it is the mechanical and control core that every other robotics text is built on, worked through in enough depth that the next book will make sense.