Best robotics & automation books according to redditors

Stolen by the publishers, not Asimov. I think that's important to note. Also, there is a screenplay version of the book, though I've never read it.

Further reading/research: (Not all of which I've gotten to read yet. Some of which may be quite tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand along with the books and sites I mentioned above. Consider this more a list of books pertaining to the history of technology, machining, metrology, some general science and good engineering texts.)

Dan Gelbart's Youtube Channel

Engineerguy's Youtube Channel

Nick Mueller's Youtube Channel

mrpete222/tubalcain's youtube channel

Tom Lipton (oxtools) Youtube Channel

Suburban Tool's Youtube Channel

NYCNC's Youtube Channel

Computer History Museum's Youtube Channel

History of Machine Tools, 1700-1910 by Steeds

Studies in the History of Machine Tools by Woodbury

A History of Machine Tools by Bradley

Tools for the Job: A History of Machine Tools to 1950 by The Science Museum

A History of Engineering Metrology by Hume

Tools and Machines by Barnard

The Testing of Machine Tools by Burley

Modern machine shop tools, their construction, operation and manipulation, including both hand and machine tools: a book of practical instruction by Humphrey & Dervoort

Machine-Shop Tools and Methods by Leonard

A Measure of All Things: The Story of Man and Measurement by Whitelaw

Handbook of Optical Metrology: Principles and Applications by Yoshizawa

Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon by Gray

Machine Shop Training Course Vol 1 & 2 by Jones

A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882-1982

Numerical Control: Making a New Technology by Reintjes

History of Strength of Materials by Timoshenko

Rust: The Longest War by Waldman

The Companion Reference Book on Dial and Test Indicators: Based on our popular website www.longislandindicator.com by Meyer

Optical Shop Testing by Malacara

Lost Moon: The Preilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell and Kruger

Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Johnson & Smith

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Rich & Janos

Unwritten Laws of Engineering by King

Advanced Machine Work by Smith

Accurate Tool Work by Goodrich

Optical Tooling, for Precise Manufacture and Alignment by Kissam

The Martian: A Novel by Weir

Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain by Young Budynas & Sadegh

Materials Selection in Mechanical Design by Ashby

Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer by Shute

Cosmos by Sagan

Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners and Plumbing Handbook by Smith Carol Smith wrote a number of other great books such as Engineer to Win.

Tool & Cutter Sharpening by Hall

Handbook of Machine Tool Analysis by Marinescu, Ispas & Boboc

The Intel Trinity by Malone

Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals by Thompson

A Handbook on Tool Room Grinding

Tolerance Design: A Handbook for Developing Optimal Specifications by Creveling

Inspection and Gaging by Kennedy

Precision Engineering by Evans

Procedures in Experimental Physics by Strong

Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870's by Dick

Flextures: Elements of Elastic Mechanisms by Smith

Precision Engineering by Venkatesh & Izman

Metal Cutting Theory and Practice by Stephenson & Agapiou

American Lathe Builders, 1810-1910 by Cope As mentioned in the above post, Kennth Cope did a series of books on early machine tool builders. This is one of them.

Shop Theory by Henry Ford Trade Shop

Learning the lost Art of Hand Scraping: From Eight Classic Machine Shop Textbooks A small collection of articles combined in one small book. Lindsay Publications was a smallish company that would collect, reprint or combine public domain source material related to machining and sell them at reasonable prices. They retired a few years ago and sold what rights and materials they had to another company.

How Round Is Your Circle?: Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet by Bryant & Sangwin

Machining & CNC Technology by Fitzpatrick

CNC Programming Handbook by Smid

Machine Shop Practice Vol 1 & 2 by Moltrecht

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles A fantastic book with tons of free online material, labs, and courses built around it. This book could take a 6th grader interested in learning, and teach them the fundamentals from scratch to design a basic computer processor and programming a simple OS etc.

Bosch Automotive Handbook by Bosch

Trajectory Planning for Automatic Machines and Robots by Biagiotti & Melchiorri

The Finite Element Method: Its Basis and Fundamentals by Zhu, Zienkiewicz and Taylor

Practical Treatise on Milling and Milling Machines by Brown & Sharpe

Grinding Technology by Krar & Oswold

Principles of Precision Engineering by Nakazawa & Takeguchi

Foundations of Ultra-Precision Mechanism Design by Smith

I.C.S. Reference Library, Volume 50: Working Chilled Iron, Planer Work, Shaper and Slotter Work, Drilling and Boring, Milling-Machine Work, Gear Calculations, Gear Cutting

I. C. S. Reference Library, Volume 51: Grinding, Bench, Vise, and Floor Work, Erecting, Shop Hints, Toolmaking, Gauges and Gauge Making, Dies and Die Making, Jigs and Jig Making
and many more ICS books on various engineering, technical and non-technical topics.

American Machinists' Handbook and Dictionary of Shop Terms: A Reference Book of Machine-Shop and Drawing-Room Data, Methods and Definitions, Seventh Edition by Colvin & Stanley

Modern Metal Cutting: A Practical Handbook by Sandvik

Mechanical Behavior of Materials by Dowling

Engineering Design by Dieter and Schmidt

[Creative Design of Products and Systems by Saeed]()

English and American Tool Builders by Roe

Machine Design by Norton

Control Systems by Nise

That doesn't include some random books I've found when traveling and visiting used book stores. :)

It's similar to assembly language but I'm guessing that you have figured that much out already.

This might be helpful to you:
Automating with STEP 7 in STL and SCL: SIMATIC S7-300/400 Programmable Controllers

Here is (was?) my controls textbook, it's only $6. Goes over all the math needed for PID and a bit beyond.

You should be able to download a trial of the TIA Portal (choose professional for the S7-300) It has a nice GUI that's more intuitive than the previous generation of software:

http://support.automation.siemens.com/WW/view/en/106448872?Datakey=47071380

Hans Berger books are the gold standard in instructional guides for automating in Step 7. However, if you have the help files installed, you should be able to find plenty of guides on your local PC.

http://www.amazon.com/Automating-STEP-STL-SCL-Programmable/dp/3895784125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421352480&sr=8-1&keywords=stl+siemens

As always, you can call Siemens and usually receive complementary in-person support for most basic requests: 1-800-333-7421

Stochastic control theory, though that's not necessarily AI/ML related. You may still find that a good research subject and include methods or components you could mix into your overarching model.

ex.
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Stochastic-Control-Electrical-Engineering/dp/0486445313

It should be noted that, as far as I know, the RB5X is not for sale by the manufacturer any longer. Bits and parts may still be available, but the entire unit is very doubtful - despite whatever the website for it may say or look like.

They started to "close up shop" probably almost a decade ago, if not more. That site is mainly a "shell" - but lots of fun stuff to look at. In fact, there's enough info and photos available on the site that you could (in theory) build your own version of the RB5X.

Years ago I did an interview with David L. Heiserman, about his robots and his books on robotics he wrote. The interview text isn't available right now (my website is currently in a state of limbo), but one thing he told me was that the RB5X was basically a licensed version of his "Rodney" robot, from his book "How to Build Your Own Self-Programming Robot":

https://www.amazon.com/How-Build-Your-Self-programming-Robot/dp/0830612416

It should be noted that the algorithms used in that book are pretty much followed up in a couple of his other books:

"Robot Intelligence - with Experiments"

https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Intelligence-Experiments-David-Heiserman/dp/0830611916

...and:

"Projects in Machine Intelligence for Your Home Computer"

https://www.amazon.com/Projects-Machine-Intelligence-Your-Computer/dp/0830613919

Both of these books delve deeper into the same logic used in Rodney, but done in BASIC; they could be easily adapted to Python, Javascript, or C/C++ if one wanted. The programs were designed to be run on a home computer of the era, where the "robot" was represented as a "dot" on the screen, and interacting with other "objects" on the screen - ie, a very primitive robotics simulation environment, more or less.

An Arduino would be more than capable of running the algorithms, but a larger microcontroller or embedded processor would be a more suitable choice - if you wanted to translate them into something that could control actual robot hardware, to make your own "RB5X" like robot.

A simple such machine could be made using a roomba as the base, a concrete form tube for the body, and maybe a salad bowl for the head (if you can't find a low-cost acrylic hemisphere). A ring of ordinary ultrasonic modules could act as the sensors, and bump sensors would be easy enough to implement. You could also opt for any number of other kinds of sensors (SharpIR, an old Neato LIDAR, maybe a Kinect).

It's a project I've long contemplated, but have never actually moved to implement. I think it would be neat to see it done.

PLC Controls with Structured Text (ST) https://www.amazon.com/dp/8743002420/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_zX3mDbMVVCQ0K Here is that book in English. I purchased it a few weeks ago, and haven't gotten too far into it, but looks to be a good introduction.

My former lecturer wrote a book on programming with structured text: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/8743002420/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_8743002420

I can’t remember how much it goes into structuring a bigger program, but it can be very useful as a reference book.