Embedded Systems for Robotics
This is course 2 of the Robotics Hardware & Systems track, and it goes underneath the actuators from course 1 to look at the computers that actually drive them. You'll learn the real difference between a microcontroller and a single-board computer, why a robot's motor control loop almost always needs dedicated real-time hardware instead of a general-purpose OS, and the wire-level protocols (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN bus) that let boards and sensors talk to each other reliably. The course ends by assembling these pieces into the architecture pattern used by most real mobile robots: a Linux SBC handling perception and planning, talking down to an MCU that handles motor control and safety, each doing the job it's actually good at. This isn't a ROS course and it isn't about motors or batteries, it's specifically about the compute and communication layer that ties a robot's brain to its body.
