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Welcome to METR 4202/7202 --
Advanced Controls and Robotics!

UQ Robotics!

Overview:

This course teaches the fundamentals of robot system design and control -- including multi-link robot arms and mobile robot systems.  The first part of this course will cover select mathematical techniques of Homogenous transformations, serial (open-chain) kinematics, multi-body dynamics, state-space control, and vision as they pertain to solving complex geometrical problems seen in calculating the correct positions and speeds to drive the robot motors in order to move the arm in the desired manner.  The latter parts of this course discuss the design of controllers using state-space and adaptive control techniques.  The goal is to be able to understand keywords in the robotics domain and, in particular, be able to interpret an abstract from a paper in a major robotics conference, such as ICRA or RSS.

Additional information can be found on the Courses & Programs listing and in the Course Profile. 

Schedule & Locations:

Download Course Calendar as (ics) (pdf)

Lectures:

  1. July 23:   Introduction to Robotics (revised 30/July)
  2. July 30:   Representing Position & Orientation & State
    (Frames, Transformation Matrices & Affine Transformations)
  3. Aug 6:    Robot Kinematics and Dynamics
  4. Aug 13:    Robot Dynamics & Control

  5. Aug 20:    Obstacle Avoidance & Motion Planning
  6. Aug 27:    TSPs and Sensors and Measurement
     
  7. Sep 3:   Perception  
  8. Sep 10:   Computer Vision and Localization (SFM / SLAM)

  9. Sep 17:   Optical Flow (Prof. M. Srinivasan)
    Study break
  10. Oct 1:    (Public Holiday -- Queens Birthday)

  11. Oct 8:    Introduction to State-Space  [Revised Nov 8, 2012]
  12. Oct 15:  Planning Under Uncertainty
     
  13. Oct-22:  Course Review
                  & Field Robotics Case Study

Tutorials:

  1. The MATLAB Robotics Toolbox
  2. Homogenous Transformations
  3. Forward and Inverse Kinematics -- Solutions
  4. Jacobian and Newton Euler Dynamics -- Solutions (Solutions with Attachments)  (Revised Oct 31, 2012)
  5. Trajectory Generation and Motion Planning -- Solutions
  6. Robot Kinematics Q & A
  7. Image formation and features
  8. Kinect Image Calibration  
  9. SIFT Feature Detection
  10. Image Processing (Lab 2) Q & A
  11. Cart & Pole
  12. Systems and Controls Lab Q & A
  13. Systems and Controls Lab Super Q & A

Prac Sessions / Laboratories:

Group List (please contact tutors to update)

Team Peer Assessment Questionnaire

  1. Kinematics Lab  (robot arm design and point positioning control)
  2. Sensing Lab (Camera/Kinect object detection)
  3. Systems & Controls Lab
    (Robot arm to place an object at an arbitary desitination)

Final Exam Information:

  1. Practice Final Exam  (posted Oct 12)
  2. Format:

Due Dates:

  1. Kinematics Lab Report -- August 31
  2. Sensing Lab Report -- October 5
  3. Systems & Controls Lab Report -- October 27

 

Books/Reference Material:

Textbook: Robotics, Vision & Control by Peter Corke
Available for sale from Amazon -- Also available for online reading via SpringerLink

Supplementary Book: Planning Algorithms by S. M. LaValle
Available for sale from Amazon and online (HTML)

Additional References (Import into BibTeX):

Robotics Cool Video Share:

Downloads:

UQ e-Learning:

UQ only materials and course grades are on Blackboard.   (Please log-in for full course materials and details)

Contact Information:


Please refer comments & questions to: metr4202@itee.uq.edu.au

UQ Robotics Design Lab, 2012
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-SA)