Syllabus for “Introduction to Robotics”
ME170A/ECE181A, Fall 2011
Instructor: Francesco Bullo

This is the syllabus for the UCSB course ME 170A / ECE 181A “Introduction to Robotics”, Fall 2011 (lecture times during period: Th.22sep2011 through Fri.02dec2011). This information is always available and updated at the URL http://motion.me.ucsb.edu/ME170A-Fall2011/syllabus.html.

The userid and password information for the lecture notes will be given via email and in class.

When and how to turn in homework and MATLAB assignments

Homework is typically due on Thursday 5pm of the following week (e.g., Homework for Week 1 is due on Thursday of Week 2). The week-by-week schedule below includes the few exceptions.

Handwritten or typed answers are to be placed in the homework box for ME170A near room 2243, Engr Bldg II.

Electronic answer are to be emailed to introtorobotics-at-gmail.com with subject “MATLAB Assignment #XYZ” or “MATLAB Project #XYZ”, where XYZ is the number of the assignment or project. Typically, M-files are to be emailed as attachments. For your information, we will run your M-files and MATLAB scripts through a test routine to check they work properly.

How to learn MATLAB

• MATLAB video tutorials by MathWorks: (html) and demos (html)

• MATLAB Primer (version 3, by Kermit Sigmon): (pdf)

Week 1: September 27 and 29
Sensor-Based Motion Planning (Bug Algorithms)

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #1 (pdf)

• Homework Assignment #1 (due on Th Week 2): Exercises E1.1, E1.3, E1.5

• MATLAB Assignment #1 (due on Th Week 2): Exercise E1.6 with required scripts : dist.m (m-file), getLineThroughTwoPoints.m (m-file), and test points (m-file)

Week 2: October 4 and 6
Motion Planning via Decomposition and Search

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #2 (pdf)

• Homework Assignment #2 (due Th Week 3): Exercises E2.1, E2.2 and E2.6

• MATLAB Assignment #2 (due Th Week 3): Exercise 1.7

• Matlab scripts (solution of Homework #1 Matlab): (getDistancePointToLine.m file) and (getDistancePointToSegment.m file)

• MATLAB Project #1 (due in two weeks, Thursday of Week 4, October 20): Exercise E1.8 “The Bug 1 Algorithm” . Some parts of the exercises are to be emailed and others are to be turned into the homework box. Project #1 requires the solution of Exercises 1.6 and 1.7 and solutions to MATLAB Exercise 1.7 will be made available.

• MATLAB scripts (solution of Homework #2 MATLAB): computeDistancePointToPolygon.m (m-file) and computeTangentVectorToPolygon.m (m-file) MATLAB scripts required for project: computeBugBasePath.m (m-file) and testBugEnvironment.m (m-file)

Week 3: October 11 and 13
Configuration Spaces

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #3 (pdf). Optional reading: Chapter 4 “The Configuration Space” of textbook “Motion Planning” by Steven M. LaValle: (html) and/or (pdf)

• Homework Assignment #3 (due Th Week 4): Exercises E3.1, E3.2, E3.4, E3.6

• MATLAB Assignment #3 (due Th Week 4): Exercise 2.7 with required MATLAB data file and m-file: adjList.mat (mat-file) and exampleBFS.m (m-file)

Week 4: October 18 and 20
Motion Planning via Sampling and Collision Detection

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #4 (pdf)

• Homework Assignment #4 (due Th Week 5): Exercises E4.2, E4.3, E4.4, and E4.5

• MATLAB Assignment #4 (due Th Week 5): Exercise 4.6 and 4.7 with required MATLAB script (sampleOneLinkFreeCSpace.m m-file)

• MATLAB scripts (solution of Homework #3 MATLAB): (computeBFSEdges.m m-file) and (findBFSPath.m m-file)

Week 5: October 25 and 27
Motion Planning via Sampling

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #5 (pdf).

  • additional reading on PRMs: Robotic Path Planning and Protein Modeling

  • additional reading on PRMs and RRTs: Sections 5.4-5.6 of “Motion Planning” by SML

  • example RRT motion plans: gallery

• Homework Assignment #5 (due Tuesday Week 6): Exercises E5.1, E5.2, E5.3.

• MATLAB scripts (solution of Homework #4 MATLAB): (sampleTwoLinkFreeCSpace.m m-file) and (samplingcode.m m-file)

• MATLAB scripts (solution of Project #1): (computeBug1Path.m m-file)

• MATLAB Project #2 (due in 2 weeks, Thursday Week 7): Exercise E5.4 “The 2-link Manipulator with Polygons and PRMs” (Some parts of the exercises are to be emailed and others are to be turned into the homework box.) MATLAB scripts required for project: testTwoPolyLinkGrid.m (m-file), findBFSPathFromDict.m (m-file), testDisplaceLinkPoly.m (m-file), angDist.m (m-file) and checkCollisionBetweenPolygons.m (m-file).

Week 6: November 1 and 3
Review and Midterm

• MIDTERM: Thursday November 3

Week 7: November 8 and 10
Introduction to kinematics and rotation matrices

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #6 (pdf).

Week 8: November 15 and 17
Rotation matrices (composition, parametrization)

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #7 (pdf)

• Homework Assignment #6 (due Wed Week 9): Exercises E6.1, E7.1, E7.2, E7.3, E7.4, E7.5.

• MATLAB Assignment #6 (due Wed Week 9): Exercises 7.9 with required MATLAB script testCubeRotation.m (m-file)

• MATLAB scripts (solution of Project #2): (displaceLinkPoly.m m-file) (computeTwoPolyLinkFreePoints.m m-file)(computeAdjDictForFreeCSpacePoints.m m-file) and (testTwoPolyLinkPRM.m m-file)

Week 9: November 22
Displacement matrices (as models for rigid motion and transformations)

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #8 (pdf). Additional reading: Motoman HP20 Brochure

• Homework Assignment #7 (due Th Week 10): Exercises E8.1, E8.2, E8.3

Week 10: November 29 and December 1
Motion models

• Reading Assignment: Lecture Notes Chapter #9 (pdf)

Finals Week

• Monday December 5

• 12noon - 3pm