Top Robotics books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Robotics books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Robotics

Understanding the concepts of Robotics starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Factory robots

General Motors brought the first factory robot to life in 1961. The 4,000-pound assembly-line robot was named Unimate. It proved it could build cars twice as fast as humans could! In this childrens tech title, the behind-the-scenes robots that make factory work fly get much-deserved attention.

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Probabilistic Robotics

Probabilistic robotics is a new and growing area in robotics, concerned with perception and control in the face of uncertainty. Building on the field of mathematical statistics, probabilistic robotics endows robots with a new level of robustness in real-world situations.

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A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation

A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation presents a mathematical formulation of the kinematics, dynamics, and control of robot manipulators. It uses an elegant set of mathematical tools that emphasizes the geometry of robot motion and allows a large class of robotic manipulation problems to be analyzed within a unified framework.

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Springer Handbook of Robotics

Unlike other handbooks that focus on industrial applications, the Springer Handbook of Robotics incorporates these new developments. Just like all Springer Handbooks, it is utterly comprehensive, edited by internationally renowned experts, and replete with contributions from leading researchers from around the world.

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Running with Robots: The American High School's Third Century

Toppo and Tracy intersperse these reports from the present with bulletins from the future, telling the story of a high school principal who, Rip Van Winkle–style, sleeps for twenty years and, upon awakening in 2040, can hardly believe his eyes: the principal’s amazingly efficient assistant is a robot, calculation is outsourced to computers, and students, grouped by competence and not grade lev…

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Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

How will Artificial Intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology—and there’s nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who’s helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.

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Additional Robotics Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Robotics, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Robot Futures

In Robot Futures, the roboticist Illah Reza Nourbakhsh considers how we will share our world with these creatures, and how our society could change as it incorporates a race of stronger, smarter beings.

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The Robotics Primer

The Robotics Primer is unique as a principled, pedagogical treatment of the topic that is accessible to a broad audience; the only prerequisites are curiosity and attention. It can be used effectively in an educational setting or more informally for self-instruction. The Robotics Primer is a springboard for readers of all backgrounds—including students taking robotics as an elective outside th…

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Robotics: Modelling, Planning and Control

Robotics provides the basic know-how on the foundations of robotics: modelling, planning and control. The text develops around a core of consistent and rigorous formalism with fundamental and technological material giving rise naturally and with gradually increasing difficulty to more advanced considerations.

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Mechanics of Robotic Manipulation

Mechanics of Robotic Manipulation addresses one form of robotic manipulation, moving objects, and the various processes involved—grasping, carrying, pushing, dropping, throwing, and so on. Unlike most books on the subject, it focuses on manipulation rather than manipulators.

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Awesome Robotics Projects for Kids: 20 Original STEAM Robots and Circuits to Design and Build (Awesome STEAM Activities for Kids)

Get ready to build all kinds of incredible robots―right in your own home! Designed for young robot builders, these do-it-yourself robotics for kids projects will teach you about science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) as you assemble an amazing collection of real working robots!
From scribblebots to two-legged walkers, this book walks you through robotics for kids, one beaut…

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Foundations of Robotics: A Multidisciplinary Approach With Python and Ros

It is written for students of all ages and backgrounds who want to learn about the broad fundamentals of robotics. This includes artists, designers, and writers who want to learn more about the technical workings of robots, and engineers who want to learn more about the cultural history of robots.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

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Augment your Robotics books

There is no better source of accountability and motivation than having a personal mentor. What used to be impossible to find is now just two clicks away! All mentors are vetted & hands-on!

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Jasmine Lawrence, an accomplished Staff Technical Product Manager and Founder, brings a wealth of experience in developing innovative consumer and developer-focused products. Formerly a Technical Product Manager at NVIDIA and Cruise, she played a key role in advancing the development of autonomous vehicles. With notable roles at Everyday Robots (Google), …

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I’m a 3x startup founder (2x venture-backed) with deep experience building companies from research to market. My first startup spun out of my PhD in robotics and machine learning, giving me first-hand insight into turning cutting-edge research into real products and businesses. Moving from Australia to the US to found …

$360 / month

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Previously at: - AI Product Manager at Synthesia (London): a London-based startup ($90M Series C, Unicorn 🦄) building a Generative AI-based video content creation platform. - Product Manager at Autonomous Driving startups across Silicon Valley and London (Wayve and Deepen AI) - co-Founder of Tactile Robots, an Italian startup designing …

$150 / month


Hello there. 👋 I’m Taskin, a multi-time founder, CTO, and strategic builder with over a decade of experience launching, scaling, and advising startups across medtech, biotech, spacetech and data. I’ve led teams, raised funding, built zero-to-one products, and grown multi-million-dollar businesses from scratch. My sweet spot is working at the …

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Hi there, my name is Janit Anjaria. I am a technology leader, AI Advisor, Technology and AI Coach, Mentor and a curious people loving person. About me: I have spent more than a decade in the industry and academia working on some of the most challenging and thereby interesting problems …

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Experienced digital executive, strategist, and deep-tech leader with over 8+ years of experience driving innovation across startups and SMEs in industries such as Healthcare, AR/VR, Video Content Creation, Autonomous Systems, and core Deep Tech domains. My work spans product management, AI/ML, and data science across a wide range of transformative …

$90 / month

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