Autonomy in Motion: Navigating the Real World

True autonomy begins when robots leave controlled environments and face the unpredictability of the real world. Autonomy in Motion: Navigating the Real World focuses on how machines perceive, decide, and act while moving through dynamic, uncertain spaces.
This book takes a navigation-first approach. It explores perception, localization, planning, and control as tightly coupled problems shaped by noise, delay, and incomplete information. Rather than idealized maps, the book deals with moving obstacles, changing terrain, and imperfect sensors.
Readers are guided through how autonomous systems balance safety, efficiency, and adaptability while in motion. The emphasis is on decision-making under uncertainty—how robots choose actions when certainty is impossible.
You will explore:
• How robots perceive and interpret dynamic environments
• Why navigation is harder than mapping
• How uncertainty shapes autonomous decision-making
• How motion exposes system weaknesses
• Why autonomy is a process, not a switch
This book is for roboticists, engineers, and system designers building machines that must move on their own. If autonomy only works in demos, this book explains what it takes to make it work in the real world.