This course introduces students to advanced concepts, principles, and algorithms in robotics and embedded systems. This is a project course that tackles a big challenge: creating a robotic system. Solving challenging big problems requires designing and programming robots or embedded systems that interact effectively and autonomously with the real world. Students will learn about modern technology in robotics and integrate and put to use theoretical knowledge from this course or earlier in the curriculum.
Topics include: control, motion planning; state estimation; dynamics and reversible dynamics, computer vision, visual control, mesh networking and network control of multi-robot systems.
The course will be structured with a lecture and lab. Lectures will be used to present concepts and algorithms for the course topics. Students will also present design reviews during lectures. Labs will be used to develop and implement the course challenge project. Students will work in groups to design an integrated solution for a robotic gardening system. Students will be introduced to the course platforms and system infrastructure in the lab first. In subsequent labs, students will work in small lab groups to develop, implement and evaluate a robust solution for a component of a project. The final module of the course will integrate all components and evaluate performance.