University of Pennsylvania
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Department of Mechanical Engineering


MEAM 620: Robotics and Motion Planning
Spring 2007


Table of Contents

General Info

Announcements

Instructor

Office_hours

Texts

References

Tentative Schedule

_Course_Information

Description 

Time/Location 

Schedule and notes

Homeworks

Related notes and codes

Grading Policy

 Links

Robotics

MEAM

GRASP

CIS

Seminars

 

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Send mail to the class (instructors only)

 


General Information

Meam 620 is a graduate level course in robotics, focusing on robot kinematics and motion planning. The first part of this course will cover kinematics from a differential geometric viewpoint. In the second and third parts of this course, students will also learn to use and develop algorithms to solve motion planning problems. This course is open to all engineering graduate students. Undergraduate and masters students should visit http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cse390. A more detailed description of the course is available here.

Announcements

1.      HW 6 is online and due Apr. 11, 2007

2.      Project presentations are on April 16 & 18. Presentation order will  be announced

3.      Project review is on April 4

4.      HW 5 is online and due on Mar. 26, 2007

5.      Two lectures in the week of Feb. 26-Mar. 2 will be given by Savvas.

6.      Programming assignment 2 is available and due on Mar. 16, 2007.

7.      Programming assignment 1 is online (see "Assignments/Homeworks" section) and due on Mar. 1, 2007.

8.      A half page course project proposal is due on Mar. 1, 2007.

9.      HW 2 is online and due on Feb. 19, 2007.

10.  No class on Jan 15 because of the Dr. Martin Luther King holiday.

11.  HW1 is now due on Jan 29, 2007 instead of Jan 22, 2007.

12.  HW1 is online. Access a pdf version here along with the data files for Problem 3.

13.  Access references for the course here using the username and password emailed to you earlier.

 

 

Time and Location:

          Monday & Wednesday, 1:30 – 3:00 pm, Towne 303

Instructors

Dr. Sachin Chitta,    Lectures 1-7                         Office: Levine 403,              Email: sachinc@grasp.upenn.edu

Dr. Peng Cheng,      Lectures 9-15                       Office: Levine 403,              Email: chpeng@seas.upenn.edu

Dr. Savvas Loizou, Lectures 17-23                     Office: Levine 465,              Email: sloizou@seas.upenn.edu

Ethan Stump,            Lectures 8, 16                      Office: TBA,                         Email: etsump@seas.upenn.edu

 

Office Hours

Mondays 3-4 pm, Thursdays 3-4 pm in Levine 457 or e mail the instructor for an appointment.

 

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Text

[MLS 94] Murray, R., Li, Z. and Sastry, S., A mathematical introduction to robotic manipulation. CRC Press, 1994. Comments: A group theoretic and differential geometric approach to robot kinematics and dynamics.
 

[LaValle 05] LaValle, S., Planning Algorithms. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Free at http://msl.cs.uiuc.edu/~lavalle/planning/ .

References

[1] Craig, J., Introduction to Robotics: Mechanics and Control, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1986. Comments: Easy reading, good introduction.

[2] Mason, M. and Salisbury, K., Robot Hands and the Mechanics of Manipulation, M.I.T. Press, 1985. Comments: The first book dealing with the mechanics of multifingered grasping and modeling of contacts, applications of screw theory.

[3] McCarthy, J.M., Introduction to Theoretical Kinematics, M.I.T. Press, 1990. Comments: The most readable account of theoretical kinematics. Moderately priced.

[4] Spong, M. W. and Vidyasagar, M., Robot dynamics and control. J. Wiley, 1989. Comments: A good text for robot control.

[5] Strang, G., Linear algebra and its applications. Academic press, 1980. Comments: A basic book on linear algebra. If you don't know this material, you might have trouble in this course.

[6] Handbook of Industrial Robotics,  Ed. S. Nof,  1999.  Comments: A comprehensive reference to the latest work and the state of the art in robotics research and practice.

[7] Paul, R., Robot Manipulators, Mathematics, Programming and Control, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1981. The first text and still one of the best texts.

[8] H. Choset, K. M. Lynch, S. Hutchinson, G. Kantor, W. Burgard, L. E. Kavraki and S. Thrun, Principles of Robot Motion: Theory, Algorithms, and Implementations, MIT Press, Boston, 2005.

[9] Jean-Paul Laumond (Editor), Robot Motion Planning and Control, Springer, 1998.

[10] J.C. Latombe, Robot Motion Planning, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, 1991.


 
 

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Course Information

Course Description

This course deals with the robot kinematics and motion planning. After this class, people will be expected to use and develop algorithms to solve motion planning problems. See tentative schedule.

Students are expected to have a basic background in physics and must have had basic courses in algorithms, ordinary differential equations, linear algebra and multivariable calculus. We expect students from diverse background, but with a basic level of mathematical maturity. In addition, some familiarity with one of the topic areas: robotics, dynamics, control, vision or graphics is expected.

Lectures will be complemented by discussions and presentations by the students in the class. These discussion sessions will help in problem solving.

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Tentative Schedule

No.

Date

Reading materials

Topics

Lec. 1

 

[MLS 94], 
Chapter 2
Introduction to kinematics, Rigid body motion, Rotations, SO(3), Euler's theorem,
exponential map.

Lec. 2

 

[MLS 94], Chapter 2

Homeogeneous transformation matrices, SE(3), Twists, Exponential map from se(3) to SE(3). 

Lec. 3

 

[MLS 94], Chapter 2
Twists, Chasles theorem, Screw 
theory.

Lec. 4

 

[MLS 94], 
Chapter 2
Velocity analysis

Lec. 5

 

[MLS 94], Chapter 3

Inverse Kinematics

Lec. 6

 

[MLS 94], Chapter 3
Manipulator Jacobian

Lec. 7

 

[MLS 94], Chapter 3
Wrenches and reciprocal screws, Visual servoing, 
Parallel manipulators - cable manipulator

Lec. 8

 

TBA 
 

Lec. 9

 

[LaValle 05], II-Overview
Overview of motion planning: motivation, application, general algorithm principle

Lec. 10

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 4 
Configuration space - I: concept, examples of configuration space, mathematical representation, 
parameterization

Lec. 11

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 4
Configuration space - II: representation of shape of robots, computation of configuration space 
obstacles, abstraction of path planning problems

Lec. 12

 

[LaValle 05], I-Chapter 2
Discrete planning overview: problem formulation, discrete search methods, discrete optimal planning

Lec. 13

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 6
Combinatorial planning algorithms - I : visibility-based complete planning, simplicial complex decomposition

Lec. 14

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 6

Combinatorial planning algorithms - II: cylindrical decomposition methods, Canny's algorithm

Lec. 15

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 5
Sampling-based path planning algorithms: basic concepts and methods in configuration space sampling, 
common sampling sequences, sampling-based algorithms

 Lec. 16

 

TBA

 

Lec. 17

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 7
Extensions of the Basic Motion Planning Problem

Lec. 18

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 8
Planning in discrete state spaces

Lec. 19

 

[LaValle 05], IV-Chapter 13
Planning with differential constraints
Velocity constraints, Phase space representations

Lec. 20

 

[LaValle 05], IV-Chapter 15
Stability, Lyapunov methods, controllability

Lec. 21

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 8
Feedback motion Planning 
Vector fields on R^n, Smooth Manifolds 

Lec. 22

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 8
Complete methods for continuous spaces, Acceleration based control,
velocity/acceleration constraints, Harmonic Potential functions

Lec. 23

 

[LaValle 05], II-Chapter 8
Navigation Functions (Rimon-Koditschek)


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Schedule

No

Date

Topics

Material 

Comments

1.

Jan 8, 2007

Introduction, Rotations

Lecture1.ppt, Lecture1.pdf

 

2.

Jan 10, 2007

Rotations – exponential formulation, Euler’s theorem, Homogeneous transformations – composition, similarity transformation

Lecture2.ppt, Lecture2.pdf

 

9.

Jan 10, 2007

Introduction of Motion Planning

Lecture9.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 26, 2007

Extensions of the Basic Motion Planning Problem

Lecture17a, Lecture17b

 

 

Feb 28, 2007

Navigation Functions

Lecture18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Assignments/Homeworks

1.      There will be three homeworks for every 8 lectures. Homework assignments will be posted on the web site. Reading assignments, and homework problem sets will be announced  through the web (see Lectures and homeworks). Problem sets will be assigned at least one week before they are due. You may consult your colleagues or talk to the instructors before doing the homework problems. No late homework will be accepted without special permission from one of the instructors.

2.      All students will be required to do a term paper/project. This will involve independent research (for example, read and critique one or more journal articles on material that is relevant to the class). Original work will be encouraged and suitably rewarded.

 

Homeworks

Problems

Due dates

Solutions

HW1

Data for Problem 3, Part 1 (littledog_accel.txt)

Data for Problem 3, Part 2 (littledog_gyro.txt)

 

Jan 29, 2007.

 

HW2

 

Feb 19, 2007.

 

Programming assignment 1

 

Mar 1, 2007.

 

Programming assignment 2

 

Mar 16, 2007.

 

HW5

 

Mar 26, 2007

 

HW6

 

Apr 11, 2007

 

 


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Grading Policy

The tentative grading policy is as follows:
 

Homeworks

60%

Project

40%

 

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Projects


Project work for research track

Examples

1.      Survey of different methods for representing rigid body rotations and translations (e.g., quaternions plus vectors, homogeneous transforms) from the point of view of robot kinematic transformations.

2.      Survey of motion planning algorithms:  scientific basis, methodology, algorithms, and implementations.


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Resources

NOTE: A few pages require the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to view the material.  You may download a FREE copy from the Adobe web site by clicking on the Adobe icon above.

 

Notes

See http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~meam520/notes02/

 

 

Maple code

Euler.mws

StanfordJacobian.mw

Links

Robotics Links

1.      Bookmarks

2.      Service Industry

3.      Manufacturing

4.      Research Labs

5.      Medical Robotics

6.      Humanoid Robots

7.      Other useful robotics links

Under construction.....  Please send me links that you'd like to see here.

Other Useful Links

1.      Penn Online Directory

2.     Penn Libraries Homepage

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Maintained by meam620@seas.upenn.edu