Course Syllabus

This course is a very wide introduction to robotics. It will cover the mechanics of mobile robots and manipulators, robot hardware and software, and algorithms and methods for kinematics, control, navigation and planning. It serves to give general understanding of robotics as a field of study, and provide a foundation for further studies of the different included topics in greater depth in other, more specialized courses.

The course consists of lectures, lab assignments, and a wide selection of reading materials. The course is examined with 4 smaller assignments and a larger project (LAB1), and a written exam (TEN1). The final grade is determined by the performance on the practical assignments, LAB1, while the exam TEN1 is pass/fail.

Please note that some details regarding the course may change up until the first lecture, on Aug 29, and that additional information will be added to this Canvas site.

Preliminary schedule for lecture topics:

Aug 29 - 1. Intro, Course fundamentals, Topics, What is a Robot, History Applications.
Aug 30 - 2  Manipulators, Kinematics
Aug 31 - 3 ROS Introduction

Sep 03 - 4. Differential kinematics, dynamics
Sep 04 - 5. Actuators, sensors I (force, torque, encoders, ...)
Sep 10 - 6. Grasping, Motion, Control

Sep 11 - 7. Behavior Trees and Task Switching
Sep 17 - 8. Planning (RRT, A*, ...)

Sep 18 - 9. Mobility and sensing II (distance, vision, radio, GPS, ...)
Sep 24 - 10. Localisation (where are we?)
Sep 27 - 11. Mapping (how to build the map to localise/navigate w.r.t.?)
Oct 01 - 12. Navigation (how do I get from A to B?)