CS 404: Autonomous Mobile Robotics

Instructor: Dr. Henry Hexmoor

Spring 2015

Lecture times: TuTh 3:35-4:50PM
Place: Faner 2127 (Lab) and Faner 3512 (Lecture)

For course content visit D2L

Last Updated: January 20, 2015

Course Description:

This course is a comprehensive introduction to modern robotics with an emphasis on autonomous mobile robotics. Fundamentals of sensors and actuators as well as algorithms for top level control are discussed. Multi-robotics and human-robot interaction issues are explored. A term project is an integral part of this course. Class lectures will closely track outline of the course textbook. Lectures and exams are theoretical. Class project is hands on, pragmatic and research oriented.

For a more in depth orientation read my orientation. Teaching this broad in one course is challenging and requires compromises along countless spectrums and constraints, read about them in Tradeoff.

Administration: Five homeworks will be assigned for 12 points/100 each to be submitted to D2L. Projects will be discussed in class worth 40/100 points.

Pre-requisites:

CS 330 with a grade of C or better or graduate standing. Seek permission of instructor if you need clarifications. Please Be aware that this is a programming intensive and a hands on course, requiring nontrivial programming skills.

Graduate and undergraduate students are welcome.

Objectives:

To have a rich understanding of robotic platforms and their limitations
To be able to program mobile robots
To be able to design automation solutions using mobile robots

You are expected to know or learn programming language on your own.

Special Activity: Opportunities for earning extra points (e.g., writing a user's manual for microcontroller) will also be discssed in class.

Class participation and attendance will help determine borderline grades.

Textbook: Hexmoor, 2013. Essential Principles fo Autonomous Robotics, Morgan and Claypool publishers.

Recommended textbook:

Howard Choset, et. al. 2005. Principles of Robot Motion: Theory, Algorithms, and Implementations, The MIT Press, ISBN-10: 0262033275.

Supplemental Reading:
The following links and papers are limited to education purposes by our local students. All rights remain with original sources. This list is updated as needed.

I - Good Old Fashioned Robotics

1. Principles of Robot Locomotion
2. Rodney A. Brooks' original subsumption paper
3. The Subsumption Architecture
4. Henry Hexmoor's High Level Control Loop
5. Potential Fields Tutorial
6. Howard Choset's textbook Chapter 2 slides (Bug Algorithms)
7. Howard Choset's textbook Chapter 5 slides
8. Roadmap slides

II- State of the Art in Robotics

9. Probabilistic-robotics
10. Bayesian Filters for Location Estimation
11. The Scalar Kalman Filter
12. A Fuzzy logic based Navigation System for a Mobile Robot
13. Hexmoor's Fuzzy logic
14. Affect based Computing
15. Robin Murphy's Emotion-based Control
16. Brick and Mortar
17. Markov Decision Processes
18. POMDP FAQ
19. Jong and Stone paper: RL and MDP
20. Hagit Shatkay on HMMs
21. Andrew Moore's HMM Tutorial Slides