--- title: Autonomous Systems description: This field focuses on self-operating systems that perceive, plan, and act without human intervention. Learners will understand the integration of sensing, localization, mapping, and decision-making algorithms in self-driving vehicles and drones. category: engineering subcategory: robotics difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/autonomous-systems --- # Autonomous Systems This field focuses on self-operating systems that perceive, plan, and act without human intervention. Learners will understand the integration of sensing, localization, mapping, and decision-making algorithms in self-driving vehicles and drones. ## Where to start Start with SLAM - 5 Minutes with Cyrill, a short, free beginner video introducing Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. If you only use one resource, make it Probabilistic Robotics by Sebastian Thrun, Wolfram Burgard and Dieter Fox, the standard textbook on probabilistic methods in robotics. For planning and control, continue with Underactuated Robotics (MIT 6.832) by Russell Tedrake, a free advanced course with lecture videos and problem sets. ## Available Resources 1 Videos • 2 Books • 1 Courses • 4 Websites • 1 Papers ## Websites ### 1. Duckietown Robotics education platform started at MIT in 2016, built around small autonomous vehicles driving in a miniature city. Its open curriculum and hardware teach perception, localization, planning and control by having learners program and run self-driving robots. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://duckietown.com/ **Tags:** autonomous-vehicles, self-driving, robotics-education, robot-perception, motion-control ### 2. LaValle Planning Algorithms Steven LaValle's 2006 Cambridge University Press textbook, free online in full. Covers discrete planning, sampling-based motion planning such as RRTs and roadmaps, decision-theoretic planning and planning under differential constraints, giving readers the algorithmic foundations of robot motion planning. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://planning.cs.uiuc.edu/ **Tags:** motion-planning, path-planning, sampling-based-planning, robotics, planning-algorithms ### 3. Robohub Nonprofit robotics communication platform where researchers, engineers and industry experts publish articles, interviews, podcasts and research summaries on autonomous systems, robot learning, field and medical robotics, and the societal impact of robots, useful for following the field. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://robohub.org **Tags:** robotics-research, autonomous-systems, robotics-industry, ai-and-robotics, robotics-news ### 4. ros.org ROS.org is the official portal for the Robot Operating System, a flexible, open-source framework for building robot software. It provides comprehensive documentation, tutorials, API references, distribution releases, and community resources to help learners and developers build and deploy robotics applications. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ros.org **Tags:** websites, engineering-manufacturing, mechanical-engineering ## Videos ### 1. SLAM - 5 Minutes with Cyrill Short lecture by Cyrill Stachniss of the University of Bonn explaining simultaneous localization and mapping. Viewers come away understanding why a robot must estimate its own pose and a map together, and how the problem is framed probabilistically. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuRCJ2fegcc **Tags:** slam, localization, mapping, mobile-robotics, state-estimation ## Courses ### 1. Underactuated Robotics (MIT 6.832) **Author:** Russell Tedrake Nonlinear dynamics and control of underactuated systems such as walkers, swimmers and flyers: motion planning, partial feedback linearization, energy shaping, optimal control and reinforcement learning. Includes 23 lecture videos, problem sets with solutions and projects, preparing learners to design controllers that exploit natural dynamics. **Difficulty:** Advanced | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-832-underactuated-robotics-spring-2009/ **Tags:** underactuated-robotics, nonlinear-control, optimal-control, reinforcement-learning, legged-locomotion, motion-planning ## Papers ### 1. Autonomous Drone Racing: A Survey **Author:** Drew Hanover, Antonio Loquercio, Leonard Bauersfeld, Angel Romero, Robert Penicka, Yunlong Song, Giovanni Cioffi, Elia Kaufmann, Davide Scaramuzza IEEE Transactions on Robotics survey of autonomous drone racing, comparing model-based and learning-based methods for state estimation, perception under motion blur, time-optimal trajectory planning and control at extreme speeds. Readers gain a map of the agile-flight literature and its open problems. **Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.01755 **Tags:** drone-racing, autonomous-flight, robotics, vision-based-navigation, trajectory-optimization ## Books ### 1. Probabilistic Robotics **Author:** Sebastian Thrun, Wolfram Burgard, Dieter Fox Graduate textbook on state estimation for robots under uncertainty. Covers Bayes, Kalman and particle filters, robot motion and sensor models, Markov and Monte Carlo localization, occupancy grid mapping, SLAM and POMDP planning, with algorithms given in pseudocode for implementation. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262201623?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, engineering-manufacturing, robotics ### 2. Autonomous Robots: From Biological Inspiration to Implementation **Author:** George A. Bekey Survey of autonomous robot design that draws on animal locomotion and behavior. Covers robot control architectures, sensing, legged, wheeled and flying locomotion, manipulation, learning and multi-robot systems, explaining how biological principles inform engineering of robots that act independently. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262025787?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, engineering-manufacturing, robotics --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/autonomous-systems