Introduction to Robotics

Instructor

Where and When

Although I have only one office hour scheduled, I am very fast to respond to emails from students, and it is easy to schedule a different time during the week to meet with me on an ad hoc basis. If it turns out that one formal office hour is insufficient, I will schedule another.

Course Description

This course will cover fundamental concepts, methodologies, and algorithms related to autonomous mobile robotics, touching on mechanical, motor, sensory, perceptual, and cognitive aspects of the problem of building robots that move about and decide what to do on their own. Specific topics covered include legged and wheeled location, kinematic models and constraints, mobile robot maneuverability, motion control, sensors and sensing, perception, localization, belief representations, map representations, probabilistic map-based localization, autonomous map building, planning, reacting, and navigation architectures.

Prerequisites

Textbooks

1. Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots, by Roland Siegwart and Illah R. Nourbakhsh, The MIT Press, 2004. Required. This text will serve as the primary source for lectures and material for homework assignments and exams.
2. Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implementation, second edition, by Joseph L. Jones, Anita M. Flynn, and Bruce A. Seiger, A. K. Peters, 1999. Recommended. This book provides lots of information useful to anyone who wants to build their own robot from scratch. I will occasionally hand out sections of this book in class.
3. A variety of technical papers will be used to supplement the textbooks. Links to these papers can be found in the course schedule below.

Academic Objectives

Course Work and Grading

• Class Participation (5%) - I want this class to be more like a seminar than a traditional lecture-based class. Students learn better when they actively participate in discussions. Therefore, you must come to class regularly and ask questions, answer other students' questions, make comments or observations relevant to the topic of discussion, etc. Throughout the semester I will make notes on the level of participation of each student. If you're not participating at the appropriate level, I'll let you know.
• SumoBot Project (25%) - In the first half of the semester, groups of three students will design and construct a robot from scratch. The robots will compete in a ladder tournament of SumoBot matches, with the winning team getting an exemption from the final exam! See the Projects section below for more information.
• Converted RC Car Project (25%) - In the second half of the semester, groups of four students will convert a remote controlled car so that it automatically performs obstacle avoidance. See the Projects section below for more information.
• Homeworks (30%) - There will be four homework assignments. Undergraduate students may choose to skip any one assignment without penalty. The three that you do turn in will each be 10% of your final grade. The homeworks will emphasize theory and practice, with some homeworks focusing on using simulators of existing commercial robots to explore some of the topics we cover in class.
• Final Exam (15%) - The final is the only exam in this course. Because there will be no other exams for you to use to calibrate the types of questions I'll ask or their level of difficulty, the final will be a take-home exam.

In addition to the differences in course work described above, a higher grading standard will be applied to students in 691 for exams, homeworks, and classroom participation.

Projects

SumoBot

For this project, each team of three students will be given three servos and a servo controller. Using no motors other than the servos, the teams must construct a robot that can locomote. Robots will compete in a ladder of sumo matches during the semester in which the goal is to push the other robot out of a circle. The team sitting atop the ladder at the end of the semester does not have to take the final exam, and their final grade will be based on 85 points rather than 100. However, the students can take the final exam if they choose to do so, in which case the standard percentages apply.

For videos of SumoBots and matches from the last time I taught this course, click here.

In addition to the servos and servo controller, students may use any hardware to construct the robot (e.g. cardboard, foam board, sheet metal, duct tape, glue, Velcro, Lexan, acrylic). The only energy storage device allowed is a single battery pack, which will be provided. The robot must be completely autonomous, with all code running on the microcontroller. No other computer may be used during the contest. Robots may not intentionally damage their competitors.

Each robot must be able to fit in a box 15" x 12" x 10" in some orientation, but may expand beyond that size after a match begins. Robots may weigh no more than 2 pounds.

Matches will be conducted on a wood-laminated 72" x 30" table. In the center of the table will be a circle 25" in diameter with its perimeter marked by pencil. The robots start at opposite long ends of the table, in any position with a distance of not less than 8" between the robot and the circle perimeter.

There must be a sensor-based method for telling your robot to begin the match (e.g. pushing a button, touch two leads, flipping a switch). When the button is pushed (or the leads touched, or the switch flipped), the robot must remain still for three seconds before moving. The robot in its entirety must be mobile - it may not consist of any parts that are affixed to the table.

The winner of the match is determined as follows. We say that a robot has crossed the threshold when any part of the robot crosses the circle perimeter. We say that a robot has left the circle when, after crossing the threshold, the entire robot leaves the circle. If both robots never cross the circle threshold, they tie. If both robots never leave the circle, they tie. If one robot crosses the threshold (any part of it) and the other never crosses the threshold, the former robot wins. If both robots cross the threshold, the first robot to leave the circle loses.

Rules for Ladder Play

Sumo matches will generally be played in class. Challenges must be issued via email at least 24 hours prior to the start of class to ensure that the challenged team has sufficient time to get their robot in working order. Challenges may also be issued during class and the challenged team must play a match against the challenging team if they brought their robot to class (for example, to play in a different match) and if the robot was not damaged in a prior match that day.

These rules are subject to change to maintain fairness of the competition. I'm much more interested in the intent of the rules than slavishly following precisely what they say if it is discovered that they result in unintended, unanticipated, negative consequences.

Grading

Obstacle Avoidance:

More information on this project can be found here.

A video of an obstacle-avoiding robot built by a team of students the last time I taught this course can be found here.

Grading

Academic Integrity

For this course in particular it is both OK and a good idea for students to study together, including discussing homework problems. However, whatever a student turns in must be his/her own. A good rule of thumb is that it is OK to talk about problems, but it is not OK to share written materials or code. If you incorporate written materials or code from any source in the project, an appropriate citation is required.

The minimum penalty for a first offense of academic dishonesty is a grade of zero on the assignment. However, depending on the nature of the offense, the penalty may be more severe, including but not limited to an F for the course. The minimum penalty for a second offense of academic dishonesty is an F for the course.

Course Schedule