Site upgrade: my notes, papers and tutorials are back, and so are my book recommendations

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Software, books, online teaching resources, and consulting for robotics, vision and other things.

Here are links to things I’ve created: books, software tools (including the robotics and machine vision toolboxes for Python and MATLAB®), and technical writings.

Robotics, Vision & Control: Fundamental algorithms in Python (3rd edition)

The book has been extensively revised and uses Python, rather than MATLAB, for all examples.  It builds on new Python toolbox for robotics and machine vision. All code examples can be run with zero code install using Google CoLab.

This edition includes new topics such as graph-based path planning, Dubins and Reeds-Shepp paths, branched robots, URDF models, collision checking, task-space control, deep learning for object detection and semantic segmentation, fiducial markers, and point clouds.

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Robotics, Vision & Control: Fundamental algorithms in MATLAB (3rd edition)

The book, written with colleagues Witek Jachimczyk and Remo Pillat from the MathWorks,  has been extensively revised and uses proprietary and supported MATLAB Toolboxes for all examples. All code examples can be run with zero code install using MATLAB Online.

This edition includes new topics such as graph-based path planning, Dubins and Reeds-Shepp paths, branched robots, URDF models, collision checking, task-space control, deep learning for object detection and semantic segmentation, fiducial markers, and point clouds.

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Robot Academy

The QUT Robot Academy provides free-to-use undergraduate-level learning resources for robotics and robotic vision. Although targeted at undergraduate-level around 20% of the lessons require no more than general knowledge, and the required knowledge (on a 5-point scale) is indicated for each lesson.

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Latest Posts

Prof. John H. Anderson (University of Melbourne)

Early in my academic career, John H. Anderson (JHA) was a pivotal figure who shaped my intellectual trajectory. I first took his undergraduate control systems class at the University of Melbourne, probably in 1980 — an experience that ignited my fa...

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History of the ball & beam apparatus

At a dinner during IROS2026 in Pittsburgh I was sitting next to Paul Oh and we got chatting about the famous “ball and beam apparatus” which is a staple of undergraduate control labs. In particular where it had come from.  I’d used...

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BDSim published in IEEE Control Systems Magazine

Happy to share that my paper about BDSim, an open-source block diagram modelling tool for Python, has been published in IEEE Control Systems magazine: the paper on IEEE Xplore. It greatly extends an earlier article I posted on LinkedIn back in 2022. ...

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AppleScript

AppleScript is a language that has frustrated me for decades, so I’ve gone down an AppleScript rabbit hole to find out who was responsible and why they did it. I was initially thinking public naming and shaming was in order, but the origins and...

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On color blindness

I’ve been meaning to write this piece for a long time, but wandering around a public garden and not really seeing the flowers properly was the motivation I needed to do it. Plus I’m so so tired of all the AI articles that LinkedIn shows me, m...

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Gemini and me (and block diagrams)

Let me start by saying that I’m a dinosaur and a bit of sceptic about the current AI gold rush and have not spent much time playing with LLMs. bdsim is a Python-based tool I developed for simulating block diagrams, a poor man’s SimulinkⓇ if...

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