Open to Graduate and Advanced Undergraduate Students

Robotics II

Class Location: Sage 2704
Class Time: 10:00 – 11:50 Tuesdays and Fridays
Robotics Lab Location: MRC room 331

Instructor: Jeff Trinkle
Office: MRC 330c or Lally 209b
Office Hours: Mondays and Thursdays 3:00-4:00
Email: trink AT cs.rpi.edu

Teaching Assistant: Pat Marion
Office: MRC 331
Office Hours: Mondays and Thursdays 4:00-6:00
Email: marioj AT rpi.edu

Prerequisites: Robotics I (ECSE 4490) or permission of instructor. The Course web pages for Robotics I are here. If you want to take Robotics II, but have not taken Robotics I, you can prepare by working problems from Robotics I and viewing lectures by Prof. Desrochers.

Other useful background: linear algebra, optimization

Description: This course introduces methods that leverage the basic analysis techniques learned in Robotics I to develop numerical and algorithmic techniques needed to endow robots with the “intelligence” to devise strategies to solve problems they will encounter.  Once these abilities are sufficiently well developed, robots will become safe and autonomous, thus paving the way for pervasive personal robots.  Topics include: configuration space representation, cell decomposition, roadmap methods, rapidly-exploring random trees, simultaneous localization and mapping, contact modeling, grasping, dexterous manipulation, and other current topics.

Required text:
Steve M. LaValle, Planning Algorithms, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Available free at http://planning.cs.uiuc.edu/.

Other useful texts:
(1) M.T. Mason, Mechanics of Robot Manipulation, MIT Press, 2001.  Errata.
(2) Howie Choset, et al, Principles of Robot Motion: Theory, Algorithms, and Implementations, MIT Press, 2005.
(3) Richard M. Murray, et al, A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation, CRC Press, 1994.

Lectures
Policies
Grading
Assignments
Project Ideas
Hints

Useful links
da Vinci Code: Planar multibody dynamics simulator develop in the CS Robotics Lab.
Barrett Technologies: Maker of the Arm and Hand in the CS Robotics Lab.
Andrew Miller's GraspIt! Code for grasp analysis and planning.
16-741: Matt Mason's course page at CMU.