Lectures: MWF 10:00 (plus labs, times to be arranged), Pierce
Hall, Room 223,
NOTE: Friday Sept. 19 - Matlab Intro. session, Pierce 223 then Cruft 217;
Friday Oct. 3 - No lecture
Instructor: Prof. Robert D. Howe, Pierce Hall, Room 321, phone 496-8359, email howe@deas
Course Secretary: Sheila Toomey, Pierce Hall, Room 309, phone
496-1460, email sheila@stokes
NOTE: Pick up missed handouts and graded assignments from Ms. Toomey
Teaching Fellow: Dr. Jack Dennerlein, phone 496-9098, email jax@hrl
Textbook: Fundamentals of Robotics: Analysis and Control Robert J. Schilling Prentice-Hall, 1990 (10 copies at the Coop)
Reserves: A number of references and alternate texts are on reserve in Gordon McKay Library, third floor Pierce Hall, under ES259.
There will be weekly problem sets, two midterm exams, and a final exam. In addition, there will be three or four laboratory experiments, most of which will require written reports.
ES259: Students taking the course for graduate-level credit must complete a project on an approved topic in addition to ES159 requirements. This project will consist of two parts: (1) a literature review of an area of robotics research, and (2) an independent research effort on a specific aspect of robotics. The literature review will be assigned in November and due around Thanksgiving, and the project will be due at the end of the reading period.
Grading: The relative weighting of these requirements is (ES159/ES259):
| ES159 | ES259 | |
| Problem Sets |
10% |
5% |
| Laboratories |
20 |
15 |
| Midterm Exams |
25 |
15 |
| Final Exam |
45 |
35 |
| Course Project |
- |
30 |
Prerequisites: The official prerequisites for the course are CS 50; ES 125, 145, or 156; and Physics 11a or 15a (or an equivalent mechanics course at another university). Prior knowledge of linear algebra and elementary dynamics is essential. Students who have not taken linear algebra will have a very difficult time in the course. A formal computer science course (like CS 50) is not a strict necessity, but students are required to write computer programs in a high-level language. The portion of the course dealing with robot control assumes a background in Laplace transforms (covered in ES 125, 145, or 156).
This course provides an introduction to robot manipulators and the principles of manipulation. Topics to be covered in ES159/259 include:
Kinematics of Robotic Manipulators. Relationship between the position of the robot's gripper and the joint angles, and between tip and joint velocities. ¥Rigid body motion, coordinate systems and representations of robot position. ¥Links and joints. ¥Kinematic chains. ¥Relating joint motion to tip motion (jacobians). ¥Manipulator singularities and the robot workspace. ¥Inverse kinematics.
Forces and Torques. Determining the required torque generated by the joint motors to produce a desired force at the gripper. Relating the motion of the robot in response to an arbitrary set of actuator torques/forces. ¥Static forces and torques.
Robot dynamics. Control of Manipulators. Servo control schemes for controlling the position, velocity, and force of the robot end effector. ¥Position/velocity control. ¥Force control. ¥Stiffness/impedance control. ¥Hybrid force/position control
Manipulator Design. Components used in current industrial and research robots and the principles underlying their design. ¥Actuators: electric motors, hydraulics, pneumatics ¥Joint angle sensors ¥Transmission and link design
Contact Sensing. Methods of measuring the properties of objects in the environment through contact. ¥Force and displacement sensors. ¥Tactile array sensors. ¥Dynamic tactile sensors.
Additional topics. Depending on the interests of the class and the time available, we may cover additional topics, including: ¥Haptic interfaces and teleoperation ¥Medical robotics ¥Trajectory generation and path planning ¥Assembly operations ¥Mobile robots