Book Authors
Peitao Shi is a dedicated Robotics hobbyist with over six years of academic experience in Robotics. He received his MS Robotics from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics(BUAA) and Ph.D Robotic Control Theory& Application from the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences(Beijing, China). Other than these, he also had solid mechanical engineering (B.S. from Shandong University, Jinan, China) and Electrical Engineering backgrounds (2nd MS from George Washington University).
Over the past 20+ years, He has built extensive C/C++ software programming experience working as software engineer across a range of companies and industries. currently, he is working as an embedded software/DSP for Thales Group.
Back to eight years ago. Peitao, worked as a contract robotic engineer for US Army (Army research Lab), where he gained his first hand-on experience with the Robot Operating system (ROS). Inspired by ROS open-architecture and concepts, which allowed him to explore new frontiers in robotics design and control, he started developing his own robot arm platform.
The entire work presented in this book has been accomplished in his spare time since 2018: He initially started from restoring a Puma260 industry robot-arm, and attempted to upgraded its controller with Altera FPGA and DRV11-J controller board. In recent years, he devoted himself into building his robot arms using ROS. In his free time, he also enjoys restoring and repairing vintage electrical devices, much like he does in building robots, a pursuit that blends creativity, engineering and passion.
Helen Shi contributed to the first chapter, Introduction, and did a lot of editing work for the rest of the chapters, from fixing grammar, spelling errors, and design diagrams to formatting the document with Markdown scripts.
Influenced by her father, she also has a strong interest in robots and AI (artificial intelligence) and assisted a lot of technical work in her father’s robot projects.
In her spare time, Helen likes playing the violin and volleyball.
