Introduction #

Robots are equipped with all sorts of actuators and mechanisms that require software to operate. While human teleoperation may be adequate in some situations, partial or full automation can dramatically improve performance in many situations. For this purpose, Road Runner provides robust solutions for motion planning and execution.

In this tour, you will learn simultaneously about Road Runner and the techniques and algorithms behind it. While you may not use all of these components directly, it is imperative to at least have a high-level understanding of what’s going on under the hood. The complexity of Road Runner can present pitfalls for beginning users, and debugging is near impossible without general intuition about the system.

I’ve attempted to minimize the math in the tour, but it is occasionally necessary to make the explanations precise. If you’d like to delve even further into the details, check out the resources on this page.