CSCI 4190: Introduction to Robotic Algorithms

Announcements

• [4/30] The testing files I used for assignment 2 and 3 are now in a TEST subdirectory of the /projects/ira/assign[23] directory. I've also put screen dumps from my solutions there:
  • Tests for assignment 2 (file access only works on CS machines)
  • Tests for assignment 3 (file access only works on CS machines)

• [4/28] There is an error in the second paragraph in section 10.3.3. The references to "underdamped" and "overdamped" are switched.

• [4/28] As announced last Tuesday, Quiz 6 will be on Tuesday April 30 and will cover "Control of Physical Systems" and "Nonoholonomic Motion Planning".

• [4/22] As announced last Tuesday, Quiz 5 will be on Tuesday April 23 and will cover mobile robot architectures (deliberative and reactive). You should be familiar with the STRIPS planner and subsumption architecture as well as some of the elements from study of animal behavior.

• [4/22] In Table 7.1 on page 72 in the notes, the add list for the push action should say AtRobot(n) instead of AtRobot(m). (The latter would be a valid, albeit different, action.)

• [4/20] Please see the final project page for information including sign up rules for robot time.

Course information

• Teaching staff
• Assignment web pages
• Handouts
• Course description
• Nuts & bolts (location, time, text, reserve materials)

• Old announcements
• Course policies

Instructor, office hours, class times

Prof. Wes Huang
email: whuang@cs.rpi.edu
Office: Amos Eaton 111
Office hours: Tuesdays 10-12 (or by appointment)
Secretary: see Shannon Bornt in Amos Eaton 132 for any handouts or returned assignments you missed in class.

Nuts & bolts

Items on reserve in the library

• Dudek and Jenkin, "Computational Principles of Mobile Robotics"

  This is what I would probably use for a text if I weren't writing one myself. Pretty good coverage of topics related to mobile robotics.

• Jones and Flynn, "Mobile Robots: from inspiration to implementation"

  This book is oriented somewhat towards the hobbyist. There is a lot of practical information here, particularly on some of the basic components of mobile robots.

• Latombe, "Robot Motion Planning"

  The seminal text on motion planning. Somewhat dated now, but still good.

• Kortenkamp et al., "Artificial Intelligence & Mobile Robots" Case studies of a number of mobile robot systems with an AI slant.

Course description

Prerequisites: CSCI--2300, MATH--1020, and MATH-2800.

Spring term even-numbered years. 4 credit hours

Assignment web pages

• Assignment 1
• Assignment 2
• Assignment 3

Handouts

• 1/15: syllabus ( postscript, pdf)
• 1/15: Course notes, pages 1--11: Chapter 1 and first installment of Chapter 2
• 1/18: Assignment 1 ( postscript, pdf)
• 1/18: Course notes, pages 11--12: Chapter 2, Sections 3 and 4
• 1/22: Course notes, title page
• 1/22: Course notes, pages 13--19: Chapter 3, Sections 1 and 2
• 1/22: assignment 1 details postscript, pdf)
• 1/29: Course notes, pages 19--24: Chapter 3, Section 3
• 1/29: C-space figures from Mason's "Mechanics of Manipulation"
• 2/1: Course notes, pages 23--29: Chapter 3, Sections 4 and 5
• 2/5: Course notes, pages B1--B3: Appendix B, Section 1
• 2/12: Course notes, pages 33-37: Chapter 4, Sections 1 and 2
• 2/12: Course notes, page 38: Chapter 4, Section 2 (continued)
• 2/12: Potential field figures from Latombe's "Robot Motion Planning"
• 2/15: Assignment 2 ( postscript, pdf)
• 2/15: Course notes, pages 30--31: Chapter 3, Section 6
• 2/15: Course notes, pages 39--45: rest of Chapter 4, Chapter 5 Section 1
• 2/22: Course notes, pages 45--58: Chapter 5, Sections 1 through 4
• 3/19: Course notes, pages 63--67: Chapter 6, Sections 1 and 2 (oops, I skipped some pages numbers between Chapter 5 and 6)
• 3/22: Assignment 3 ( postscript, pdf)
• 4/2: Preliminary lab and project information ( postscript, pdf)
• 4/5: Robot programming lab ( postscript, pdf)
• 4/16: Course notes, pages 69 and 71--73, Part II, Chapter 7
• 4/19: Course notes, pages 74--75 and 77--82, Chapter 7 & 8
• 4/19: Excerpt from Brooks, "Robust Layered Control," IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation RA-2 April 1986, pp. 14--23, as it appears in Brooks, "Cambrian Intelligence", MIT Press, 1999.
• 4/19: Excerpt from Brooks, "A Robot that Walks," Neural Computation Volume 1, pp 253--62, 1989, as it appears in Brooks, "Cambrian Intelligence", MIT Press, 1999.
• 4/23: Course notes, pages 83--85 and 87--90, Chapters 9 and 10
• 4/26: Course notes, pages 91--95 and 97--100, Chapters 10 and 11
• 4/30: Final project information ( postscript, pdf)

• The A* algorithm "animation" (postscript, pdf)