Control systems. This is a broad mathematical area of study and at my college we had an inter disciplinary group. Usually this is not a major all by iteself, but rather a specialization within a field.

I have known many robotics engineers. They have all specialized in controls, but have undergrad degrees in mechanical or electrical engineering. At a high enough level (theory) these two overlap. I have also known a few people with physics degrees that work on robotics. Having a mastery of software is a must, but probably not the best degree to get.

good luck

I’d agree that either mechanical or electrical engineering would be a good field for studying robotics. I took a robotics class at school (though I didn’t end up specializing in it). I remember that the class was jointly offered by those two departments.

A lot of the larger engineering schools likely have robotics programs, so see which department they’re in. If you’re really serious about robotics, you may want to look at Carnegie-Mellon. I believe they have one of the biggest robotics programs in the US.

This topic has been dealt with many times before.

I have in the past answered an extremely bright young person regarding the exact same question. Below is a combination of the previous question and my answer to it.

The field of robotics is a multi-disciplined field. You need to know:
Math, Physics….schooling

Computer Science: As a computer scientist, you can get involved in the algorithms side of things – namely, image recognition, speech recognition, motion planning. You can also be involved in the software side of things.

Electrical Engineering: In EE, you study about circuits, signals, microprocessors, controls, and chips. All these are parts of a robot. Probability, most of the EE people get involved in the controls and signals aspect of things – which means how to make the robot move and how to deal with various circuits in the robot.

Mechanical Engineering: A a MechE, you can get involved in how to put motors on a robot to move it and also controls aspects of things. Choose mechanical (with a concentration in mechatronics)

It is hard to decide which one to do. I have a masters in civil engineering, a masters in engineering science, a masters in computer science and a bsc in electronic engineering……When I started my college there was no such thing as computer science. Programming and Numerical Analysis was a subject we had to learn. Computing was a tool we used to solve partial differential equations and to get inverses of algebraic matrices and do finite element analysis.

I am not trying to dazzle you with all this. I am however trying to impress on you that nowadays there is no way you can do any engineering course (to a good level) without having to know how to program. Nevertheless, you are not taught programming to the depth needed to do real AI (artificial intelligence). AI is really a field of computer science not engineering. I realized this fact and decided to learn more about CS beyond just hacking a program together to do a particular job.

One way to get into robotics SPECIFICALLY is to go to a college that offers a Robotics curriculum. But do not enroll until you have examined the syllabus. It should include things from each of the topics mentioned above that relate to ALL THREE fields (EE, ME, CS), and they should all be well balanced theoretically and practically in relation to what is needed in the field of robotics.

I should point out to you a very important reality. A serious (as opposed to hobby or toy) robot is a very complex and sophisticated electro-mechanical device. However, no matter how great the mechanics and electronics are, they are only facilitators for the programs that make all the equipment function in an intelligent manner. Also a robot once built is fixed as far as the physics is concerned. Nevertheless, a fixed robot can do diverse tasks by changing the programming. So due to programming, the same physical robot can be a multi-tool. In the life span of a robot, an EE and a ME are needed right at the beginning, but CS is what makes the robot a versatile and dynamic tool that can extend its use beyond the physical characteristics.

Think of a computer. The electro-mechanics are of paramount importance. But once the computer is built it is fixed. What makes the computer the indispensible tool it has become? In the early days of computers a few clever electrical engineers started building computers from kits or from scratch and were very satisfied to see it come to life blinking a few LEDs. However, all this remained confined to a few hackers until USEFUL programs (Like BASIC, VisiCalc, WordStar) started coming out. From that day onwards you know the story.

Robotics in my opinion parallels the history of computers. When some people start concentrating on PROGRAMMING as well as BUILDING robots and come out with clever stuff you will start seeing robots “on every desk” (as Bill Gates is reported to have said about PCs).

Many people think that using a microcontroller might be sufficient for a robot. In reality a robot may use multiple microcontrollers with a central coordinating microprocessor (notice the difference) in a multitasking and parallel processing environment. This, you may think is the realm of EE, however it is really the realm of CS. The dynamics of motion of a robot of many degrees of freedom have a lot to do with ME but in the final outcome, to be able to effectively solve for the equations you need to know a lot about CS.

You can learn about robots and programming all for free from a great software called RobotBASIC that you can download from http://www.RobotBASIC.com.

Also watch these videos on Youtube to see what RB can do.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=john30340

On the web site there are links to books you can buy to learn about how to use RB.

Good Luck