Robotics resources
53 hand-picked links to learn, find data, meet the community and buy parts. Most are free.
Courses & books
Free university courses and textbooks to learn kinematics, control, planning and learning.
- Modern RoboticsfreeNorthwestern's textbook and video course on mechanics, planning and control. Free PDF and code library.modernrobotics.northwestern.edu
- Underactuated RoboticsfreeRuss Tedrake's MIT course on dynamics and control of legged robots, drones and manipulators, with Drake notebooks.underactuated.mit.edu
- Robotic ManipulationfreeMIT course on perception, planning and control for manipulation, hands-on with Drake.manipulation.mit.edu
- Stanford CS223AfreeOussama Khatib's introduction to robotics: kinematics, dynamics, control and trajectory generation.see.stanford.edu
- Articulated RoboticsfreePractical ROS 2 tutorials for building a real mobile robot from scratch.articulatedrobotics.xyz
- Coursera Robotics SpecializationUniversity of Pennsylvania series on aerial robotics, motion planning, mobility, perception and estimation.coursera.org
- The ConstructBrowser-based ROS courses with simulated robots, no local setup required.theconstruct.ai
- Probabilistic Robotics (book)Thrun, Burgard and Fox. The reference on localization, mapping and estimation.mitpress.mit.edu
Documentation
Official docs and tutorials for the main open-source stacks.
- ROS 2 DocumentationfreeInstallation guides, concepts and step-by-step tutorials for every ROS 2 distribution.docs.ros.org
- MuJoCo DocumentationfreeModeling reference, Python bindings and MJX for GPU simulation.mujoco.readthedocs.io
- Isaac Lab DocsfreeEnvironments, workflows and sim-to-real recipes on NVIDIA Isaac Sim.isaac-sim.github.io
- Nav2 DocumentationfreeConfiguration guides and tuning for the ROS 2 navigation stack.docs.nav2.org
- MoveIt DocumentationfreeTutorials for motion planning, MoveIt Setup Assistant and the C++ and Python APIs.moveit.picknik.ai
- PX4 User and Developer GuidefreeFlight controller setup, airframes, simulation and MAVSDK development.docs.px4.io
- ArduPilot DocumentationfreeVehicle setup, parameters and developer docs for Copter, Plane, Rover and Sub.ardupilot.org
Communities
Forums, Q&A and chats where robotics people help each other.
- ROS DiscoursefreeOfficial ROS community forum: announcements, releases, working groups.discourse.ros.org
- Robotics Stack ExchangefreeQ&A for robotics and ROS problems, the successor of ROS Answers.robotics.stackexchange.com
- r/roboticsfreeLarge general-purpose robotics subreddit for builds, questions and news.reddit.com
- Hackaday.iofreeProject logs from makers building open hardware, including many robots.hackaday.io
- Open Source Robotics FoundationfreeThe non-profit stewarding ROS, Gazebo and Open-RMF.openrobotics.org
- ROS-IndustrialfreeConsortium extending ROS to industrial manipulators and factory automation.rosindustrial.org
- RoboCupfreeInternational robotics competition with open leagues for soccer, rescue and home robots.robocup.org
Datasets & benchmarks
Public data for manipulation, navigation, driving and perception.
- BridgeData V2free60k+ trajectories of a low-cost WidowX arm across 24 environments.rail-berkeley.github.io
- RoboNetfree15M video frames from 7 robot platforms for large-scale visual learning.robonet.wiki
- YCB Object and Model SetfreeStandard physical objects and 3D models used in grasping benchmarks.ycbbenchmarks.com
- RLBenchfree100 simulated manipulation tasks with demonstrations for imitation and RL.sites.google.com
- BEHAVIOR-1Kfree1,000 household activities in simulation for embodied AI.behavior.stanford.edu
- KITTIfreeThe classic driving benchmark for stereo, optical flow, odometry and detection.cvlibs.net
- nuScenesfreeMultimodal autonomous driving dataset with LiDAR, radar and six cameras.nuscenes.org
- EuRoC MAVfreeVisual-inertial sequences from a micro aerial vehicle with ground truth.projects.asl.ethz.ch
- TUM RGB-DfreeRGB-D sequences with motion-capture ground truth for SLAM evaluation.cvg.cit.tum.de
News & newsletters
Stay current on research, products and the open-source ecosystem.
- IEEE Spectrum RoboticsfreeIn-depth reporting and the weekly Video Friday roundup.spectrum.ieee.org
- The Robot ReportfreeIndustry news, funding and product launches.therobotreport.com
- RobohubfreeCommunity news and podcast from the robotics research world.robohub.org
- Weekly RoboticsfreeCurated weekly newsletter of robotics links, projects and papers.weeklyrobotics.com
- arXiv cs.ROfreeNew robotics preprints every day.arxiv.org
Conferences
Where the field meets and publishes.
- ICRAIEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the largest robotics conference.ieee-ras.org
- IROSIEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.iros.org
- RSSRobotics: Science and Systems, single-track and highly selective.roboticsconference.org
- CoRLConference on Robot Learning, where most VLA and policy learning work appears.corl.org
Design & dev tools
Free CAD, electronics and firmware tooling for building robots.
- OnshapefreeBrowser CAD with a free plan for public documents. Exports to URDF with onshape-to-robot.onshape.com
- FreeCADfreeOpen-source parametric 3D CAD.freecad.org
- KiCadfreeOpen-source schematic capture and PCB layout for custom controller boards.kicad.org
- PlatformIOfreeCross-platform embedded build system for ESP32, STM32, Teensy and more.platformio.org
- PrintablesfreeRepository of 3D-printable parts, including many robot components.printables.com
- GitHub topic: roboticsfreeLive view of the most starred repositories tagged robotics.github.com
Parts & kits
Where builders buy servos, boards, sensors and complete kits.
- ROBOTISDynamixel servos, OpenCR boards and TurtleBot kits.robotis.us
- mjbotsmoteus controllers and quadruped-grade brushless actuators.mjbots.com
- ODrive RoboticsHigh-power brushless motor controllers.odriverobotics.com
- Seeed StudioJetson carrier boards, sensors, LiDARs and reComputer kits.seeedstudio.com
- PololuMotors, drivers, wheels and chassis for small robots.pololu.com
- SparkFunSensors, microcontrollers and open-hardware breakout boards.sparkfun.com
- AdafruitBoards, servos and excellent learning guides.adafruit.com
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