Robotics Books

Not recommended as an introduction -- lacks examples.

I was disappointed to read this book. The title, "DSP-based Electromechanical Motion Control" seems to indicate that it would cover some general techniques for motor control using DSPs.

Unfortunately, about half the book is devoted to discussing details of the Texas Instruments 2407 DSP, which I was already familiar with, since the datasheets & appnotes are available for free from TI's website. There's a little bit of "value-added" explanation by the authors, but not something I'd consider worthy of trying to publish into a textbook since technology changes so fast (usually before the ink is dry).

Quite a bit of the remainder of the book is also TI 2407-specific and includes assembly code excerpts -- It would have been better if the authors had stuck with general software & algorithm advice, in a high level language like C, or in block diagrams, rather than using a specific processor's assembly language, which takes more effort to understand and is in danger of becoming obsolete when new processors appear. (TI already has a 2800-series DSP. We use C -- assembly gives me a headache to read and I only use it when I have to.)

There is little to no analysis of control loops -- this seems to be something the authors assume the reader is already familiar with. Practical issues like PWM dead-time distortion are not even mentioned.

Good points: (there are a few, otherwise I would have given it one star) There are a few chapters on switched-reluctance motors and matrix converters which had some material I hadn't seen elsewhere. The sections on permanent magnet motors and induction motors do have the basic voltage equations for these motors -- though the chapters on them are kind of short, and other books have handled them in more detail.

I'm returning my copy to Amazon, though, and am waiting for someone to write a good in-depth practical book on DSP-based motor control that's useable on many different DSPs, not just the TI 2407 -- I can read the datasheets on that for free.

My five-year old is nuts about Buzz, Zurg, Booster and the crew. He likes this book, but doesn't read it all that often. There is no storyline; the book just introduces the crew. My son already knew them all. Would have liked more of the very colorful minor villans. Still, my son wouldn't part with it.

Each chapter of the book is written by a different group of authors. Although authors themselves are respectable researchers in the field, this one more looks like a collection of papers rather than a "book". Also not all of them are good writers, so some of the chapters are extremely boring. Few concepts are just not explained to the level of detail I would have liked...in short this book gives you a "high-level" view. And at least I would not be able to implement any system explained without making my own assumptions. Of course, I should accept that I am not a master of this subject (but then isn't that the reason I am buying this book ?)
I will not recommend this book at its given price. Makes no sense to spend $175 on this

This book covers only geometric analysis. Differential relationships, which distinguish kinematics from geometry, are not covered. Much of the book covers the geometry of an array of closed loop spatial mechanisms. This is useful if that is what you're interested in, but does not apply to serial linkages.

This book was very attractive to me by its title, so I bought it with a non-low price. However, the contents are neither rich and entensive nor systematic, and the robot systems are not novel at all. So after read it, I found nothing, but waiste of my time, energy and money. The book does really not match its title and price.

Mecahnics and Control of Robots provides a ``how-to'' introduction to robotics. Unfortunately there are several problems with the text. Some of the writing is cumbersome and hard to follow, and several fundamental items, such as homogeneous transformations, robot dynamics and control, are not adequately explained. It may be worth having for the examples if for no other reason.

Mason covers quite a collection of techniques in his book; so as an partial overview of work done on techniques addressing problems of mechanical nature in robotics, this book is reasonable. One can use it as a starting point to find more information on these topics.

However, in my opinion the book is not suitable to gain an understanding of the subject. Mason tries to cover many methods but often fails to clearly describe the essence of techniques. I often find myself reading the same section a number of times to piece together the essence of how a technique works.

This book is obviously written by someone who has absolutely no practical experience with robotics. His photos of constructed circuits are phony, as are his mechanical systems. I give it 2 stars only because some of his schematics contained some useful information. He had some interesting ideas for vision systems, however, I am sure they are untested.

I am a practician of Process Control and SPC, not a member of academia. I purchased this book hoping that it is easy to read and examples would be applicable to manufacturing processes. In contrary it is full of matrix equations, integrals, and derivatives. Examples are not for a practician. It may be the greatest book for a PhD student, I wouldn't know. But if you are an engineer go with something like Paul W. Murill's " Fundamentals of Process control Theory".