BCT4210 Robotics

This course introduces fundamental concepts in Robotics. In this course, basic concepts will be discussed, including coordinate transformations, sensors, path planning, kinematics, feedback and feedforward control, stressing the importance of integrating sensors, effectors and control. These topics will be exemplified with LEGO Robot Kit labs. 

Course Objective(s)

• The objective of this course is to use a hands-on approach to introduce the basic concepts in robotics, focusing on mobile robots and illustrations of current state of the art research and applications.

Learning Outcomes
After completion of this course, students will be able to:

• describe the different physical forms of robot architectures
• kinematically model simple manipulator and mobile robots
• mathematically describe a kinematic robot system
• analyze manipulation and navigation problems using knowledge of coordinate frames, kinematics, optimization, control, and uncertainty
• compute forward and inverse kinematics for a small serial kinematic chain
• consider trade-offs among position control, velocity control, and force control when solving a robot control problem
• perform stability analysis of a controller-robot system, and describe why it is important
• model uncertainty in robot processes
• program robotics algorithms related to kinematics, control, optimization, and uncertainty.