RoboCup SSL Electronics Textbook

An open, community-written introduction to electronics for the RoboCup Small Size League (SSL). The book is written in English so that teams around the world can improve it together.

Active textbook development takes place on the opensource-textbook branch.

The initial manuscript and worked examples are based on SRC's NEUMANN S02 platform. They are a starting point, not a single "correct" robot architecture. The book is organised by subsystem so that contributors from different teams can compare designs in one place instead of creating a separate chapter for each team.

Authors

• Xuanting Liu (SRC, China, stayinwind@sjtu.edu.cn)

Substantial contributors are recorded in the format Name (Team, Nationality, Email). Nationality provides useful context for regional component availability, distributors, pricing, and possible substitutes. Smaller contributions remain visible in Git history and release notes.

Chapter structure

1. Preface
2. The RoboCup Small Size League and Electronics Work
3. System Architecture
4. Power System
5. Sensing System
6. Control System

New material should normally extend one of these subsystem chapters. Add a new chapter only when the subject does not fit an existing system. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Build the book

The document requires XeLaTeX because it uses fontspec. Run every command below from the repository root (the directory containing textbook.tex).

1. Install TeX

Install a current TeX distribution that includes XeLaTeX and latexmk:

• Windows: TeX Live or MiKTeX. If MiKTeX asks to install missing packages, allow it to do so.
• macOS: MacTeX.
• Linux: TeX Live. On Debian or Ubuntu, the required packages can be installed with sudo apt install latexmk texlive-xetex texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-latex-extra texlive-science.

The source uses the TeX Gyre Pagella, Heros, and Cursor fonts, which are included by the recommended font packages above.

2. Compile

latexmk -xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error textbook.tex

A successful build creates textbook.pdf in the repository root. latexmk automatically reruns XeLaTeX as needed for the table of contents and references.

If latexmk is unavailable, the manual fallback is:

xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error textbook.tex
xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error textbook.tex

To remove generated auxiliary files while keeping the PDF, run:

latexmk -c textbook.tex

Design and figure attribution

Current implementation-specific material is based on SRC hardware and firmware. Captions therefore identify the concrete object, for example SRC PowerBoard, SRC ControlBoard, and SRC MotorDriver. Contributors must use the same Team + design/module convention so readers can distinguish general theory from a particular implementation.

Figure organisation

Figures are grouped by chapter under figures/:

figures/
  brand/
  general/
  system-architecture/
  power-system/
  sensing-system/
  control-system/

Use descriptive lowercase kebab-case filenames. Prefix a file with the team name when it depicts a team-specific design, for example src-powerboard-pcb-layout.png; keep genuinely generic theory figures neutral, for example flyback-principle.jpg. Store logos and other identity assets in figures/brand/. Do not add a second copy of an existing image under another name.

License

Unless a figure says otherwise, the text is released under CC BY 4.0. Before redistributing third-party figures, contributors must confirm their licenses or replace them with original diagrams.