Schedule

All assignments are due at 3:35pm.

Date Topic Reading Assignments
Wed, 23 Aug Introduction and Overview, Robot Mechanisms Ch 1 Proj 1 out
Fri, 25 Aug The Robot Operating System ROS intro, Ch 1–2
Topic 1 Simulation
Mon, 28 Aug Applications of Simulation Ch 2.0–2.2 HW 1 out
Wed, 30 Aug Numerical Integration Ch 2.3.0–2.3.1
Fri, 1 Sep Numerical Differentiation Ch 2.3.2–2.3.3
Mon, 4 Sep No class – Labor Day
Topic 2 Kinematics
Wed, 6 Sep Rigid Body Abstraction Ch 3.2 Proj 1 due
Fri, 8 Sep Rotations and Rotation Matrices Ch 3.3.0–3.3.1
Mon, 11 Sep Euler Angles, Axis-Angle, Quaternions Ch 3.3.2–3.3.6
Wed, 13 Sep Properties of Rotations Ch 3.4 Proj 2 out
Fri, 15 Sep Rigid Bodies and Homogeneous Transforms Ch 3.5 HW 1 due
Mon, 18 Sep Kinematic Chains Ch 3.6
Wed, 20 Sep Mobile Robot Kinematics Ch 3.7 HW 2 out
Fri, 22 Sep Inverse Kinematics Ch 3.8
Mon, 25 Sep Linear and Angular Velocities, Moving Coordinate Frames Ch 3.9.0–3.9.2
Wed, 27 Sep The Jacobian Ch 3.9.3–3.9.5
Topic 3 Optimization
Fri, 29 Sep Basics: Gradients, Critical Points Ch 4.0–4.1
Mon, 2 Oct Iterative Methods: Newton’s Method Ch 4.2.0–4.2.1
Wed, 4 Oct Iterative Methods: Gradient Descent Ch 4.2.2 HW 2 due; HW 3 out
Fri, 6 Oct Iterative Methods: Stochastic Gradient Descent Ch 4.2.3 Proj 2 due
Mon, 9 Oct No class – Fall Break
Wed, 11 Oct In-class prelim
Fri, 13 Oct Constrained Optimization: Lagrange Multipliers Ch 4.3.1
Mon, 16 Oct Constrained Optimization: Linear Programming Ch 4.3.2
Wed, 18 Oct Linear Programming Software QP with CVXOPT
(reference)
HW 3 due
Topic 4 Control
Fri, 20 Oct Principles of Control Design Ch 5.0–5.2
Mon, 23 Oct Stability Ch 5.3 Proj 3 out
Wed, 25 Oct Observability, Controllability, Feedback Control Ch 5.4 HW 4 out
Fri, 27 Oct PID Control Ch 5.5.0–5.5.1
Mon, 30 Oct PID Control Performance and Tuning Ch 5.5.2
Wed, 1 Nov Path-Following Controllers Ch 5.6
Topic 5 Uncertainty
Fri, 3 Nov Nondeterminism vs. Stochasticity, Probability Basics Ch 6.0–6.2
Mon, 6 Nov Random Variables and Distributions Ch 6.3
Wed, 8 Nov Statistical Moments Ch 6.4 HW 4 due
Fri, 10 Nov Multiple Random Variables Ch 6.5
Mon, 13 Nov Bayes’ Rule, Frequentist vs. Bayesian Ch 6.6 Proj 3 due
Wed, 15 Nov In-class prelim
Fri, 17 Nov Kalman Filters Ch 6.7–6.8 HW 5 out; Proj 4 out
Mon, 20 Nov Particle Filters Ch 6.9
Wed, 22 Nov No class – Thanksgiving Break
Fri, 24 Nov No class – Thanksgiving Break
Mon, 27 Nov Markov Assumption, Markov Chains Ch 6.10
Wed, 29 Nov Entropy Ch 6.11
Fri, 1 Dec Topic TBA HW 5 due
Tue, 5 Dec No class Proj 4 due
TBA Dec Final Exam (take-home)