CSCE 990: Robotics Today
Fall 2012

Instructor

Dr. Carrick Detweiler
Computer Science and Engineering
220 Schorr Center
carrick _at_ cse.unl.edu
Office Hours:
Tuesday 3:15-4:15pm,
by scheduling a time yourself (google account required),
and by appointment.

Course Information

Tues and Thurs 2:00-3:15pm in Avery 109

For detailed information on this course please see the course syllabus in html or pdf format.

Course Description

Robots play an increasingly important role in our lives, from assembling our cars and cell phones to vacuuming our rugs and flying recon missions. To create systems that work in the real world, the field of robotics requires robust theory and algorithms that are tightly integrated with hardware that is designed with engineering expertise. This course explores fundamental algorithms of robotics and how they are implemented and coupled with real world systems The focus of the course will be on field robotics, which deals with robots operating in unstructured and dynamic environments. Topics covered in this class include motion planning, state estimation, localization, vision-based navigation, manipulation, multi-robot systems, flying robots, sensors, and mechanical design. We will explore these topics through the critical analysis of classic and contemporary articles in the field of robotics. By examining algorithms and systems used in the real world, we will determine what it takes to go from theory to implementation. In this class, students will present, discuss, and write analyses of robotics research. In addition, a semester-long group project will allow students to further explore areas of interest in robotics. The goal of this course is for students to gain an understanding of the challenges and current state of the art in robotics and to improve critical analysis skills.

Assignments

See the course syllabus and schedule below for readings and assignments. Unless otherwise noted, assignments are due at the start of class on the due date.

Reading/Assignment Due Date
Course Survey Weds, Aug 22nd, 5pm
Email with final project group members Weds, Sept 12th, 5pm
Draft project proposals (bring 3 printed copies) Thurs, Sept 27th, start of class
Project proposals due via email Sat, Sept 29th, 3pm
Project status report due via email Weds, Oct 31st, 5pm
Last chance to submit reviews Tues, Nov 20th
Project report Nov 20/26th, 5pm
Project review Thurs, Nov 29th, 3pm
Project presentations Dec 4/6th

*Note html versions of assignments may lack some formatting or pictures found in the pdf version.

Course Schedule

Below is an approximate schedule of course topics and due dates. These are subject to change, assignments will be announced in class. Readings will be added as the semester progresses, so make sure to check back often.

Most articles are available from on campus by clicking on the links below. If this does not work (or you are off campus), try google or the UNL library website. If you are still unable to download the article, contact a classmate or me for a copy.
Week Readings Tentative Due Dates
Week 1, Aug 20th Tuesday: None
Thursday:
[1] M. Dunbabin and L. Marques, "Robots for Environmental Monitoring: Significant Advancements and Applications," IEEE Robotics Automation Magazine, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 24-39, Mar. 2012.
[2] E. Guizzo and T. Deyle, "Robotics Trends for 2012 [The Future Is Robots]," IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 119-123, Mar. 2012.
Week 2, Aug 27th Tuesday:
[1] J. Bohren, T. Foote, J. Keller, A. Kushleyev, D. Lee, A. Stewart, P. Vernaza, J. Derenick, J. Spletzer, and B. Satterfield, Little Ben: The Ben Franklin Racing Team's entry in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge," Journal of Field Robotics, vol. 25, no. 9, pp. 598-614, 2008.
[2] E. Guizzo, "Soft Robotics [Turning Point]," IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 128-125, Mar. 2012.
Thursday (John-Paul):
[1] A. M. Dollar and R. D. Howe, "The Highly Adaptive SDM Hand: Design and Performance Evaluation," The International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 585-597, Apr. 2010.
[2] L. Natale and E. Torres-Jara, "A sensitive approach to grasping," in Proceedings of the sixth international workshop on epigenetic robotics, 2006, pp. 87-94.
Week 3, Sept 3rd
Labor Day Monday
Tuesday (Mamur):
[1] P. P. Neumann, S. Asadi, A. J. Lilienthal, M. Bartholmai, and J. H. Schiller, "Autonomous Gas-Sensitive Microdrone: Wind Vector Estimation and Gas Distribution Mapping," IEEE Robotics Automation Magazine, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 50-61, Mar. 2012.
[2] G. Muscato, F. Bonaccorso, L. Cantelli, D. Longo, and C. D. Melita, "Volcanic Environments: Robots for Exploration and Measurement," IEEE Robotics Automation Magazine, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 40-49, Mar. 2012.
Thursday:
[1] M. Purugganan and J. Hewitt. How to Read a Scientific Article. Rice University, 2004. Online.
[2] B. J. Julian, M. Angermann, M. Schwager, and D. Rus, "Distributed Robotic Sensor Networks: An Information Theoretic Approach," The International Journal of Robotics Research, Aug. 2012.
Week 4, Sept 10th Tuesday:
[1] (continued) B. J. Julian, M. Angermann, M. Schwager, and D. Rus, "Distributed Robotic Sensor Networks: An Information Theoretic Approach," The International Journal of Robotics Research, Aug. 2012.
[2]G. Welch and G. Bishop. "An Introduction to the Kalman Filter.," Available Online.
Thursday (Kearney):
[1] P. Abbeel, A. Coates, M. Montemerlo, A. Ng, and S. Thrun, "Discriminative training of Kalman filters," in Proc. of Robotics: Science and Systems, 2005.
READ UP TO SECTION 4 [1] R. Smith, M. Self, and P. Cheeseman, "Estimating uncertain spatial relationships in robotics," Autonomous robot vehicles, vol. 1, pp. 167-193, 1990.
Decide on project groups
Week 5, Sept 17th Tuesday: Group Meetings
Thursday(Baoliang):
[1] H. Durrant-Whyte and T. Bailey, "Simultaneous localization and mapping: part I," Robotics & Automation Magazine, IEEE, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 99-110, 2006.
FINISH READING PAPER [2] R. Smith, M. Self, and P. Cheeseman, "Estimating uncertain spatial relationships in robotics," Autonomous robot vehicles, vol. 1, pp. 167-193, 1990.
Week 6, Sept 24th Tuesday (Jinfu):
[1] C. Teulie, L. Eck, E. Marchand, and N. Gue, "Model-based tracking for UAV position control," in 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2010, pp. 1084-1089.
[2] K. Wenzel, A. Masselli, and A. Zell, "Automatic Take Off, Tracking and Landing of a Miniature UAV on a Moving Carrier Vehicle," Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 221-238, 2011.
Thursday: Project Proposal Peer Editing
Final project proposal
Week 7, Oct 1st Tuesday (Al):
[1] Y. Jiang, J. R. Amend, H. Lipson, and A. Saxena, "Learning hardware agnostic grasps for a universal jamming gripper," in 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2012, pp. 2385-2391.
[2] S. Zhou, J. Xi, M. W. McDaniel, T. Nishihata, P. Salesses, and K. Iagnemma, "Self-supervised learning to visually detect terrain surfaces for autonomous robots operating in forested terrain," Journal of Field Robotics, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 277-297, Mar. 2012.
Thursday:
[1] G. Klein and D. Murray, Parallel Tracking and Mapping for Small AR Workspaces," in Mixed and Augmented Reality, 2007. ISMAR 2007. 6th IEEE and ACM International Symposium on, 2007, pp. 225-234.
[2] T. Whelan, M. Kaess, M. Fallon, H. Johannsson, J. Leonard, and J. McDonald, "Kintinuous: Spatially Extended KinectFusion," Jul. 2012.
Week 8, Oct 8th Tuesday and Thursday: No Class (at IROS). Read and review:
[1] S. G. Yuen, D. P. Perrin, N. V. Vasilyev, P. J. del Nido, and R. D. Howe, "Force Tracking With Feed-Forward Motion Estimation for Beating Heart Surgery," Robotics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 888-896, 2010.
[2] S. Scherer, S. Singh, L. Chamberlain, and S. Saripalli, "Flying Fast and Low Among Obstacles," in Robotics and Automation, 2007 IEEE International Conference on, 2007, pp. 2023-2029.
[3] V. Zykov, E. Mytilinaios, M. Desnoyer, and H. Lipson, "Evolved and Designed Self-Reproducing Modular Robotics," Robotics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 308-319, 2007.
Week 9, Oct 15th
Fall Break Mon-Tues
Tuesday: NO CLASS
Thursday (Sreeja):
[1] J. Mendoza, M. Veloso, and R. Simmons, "Motion Interference Detection in Mobile Robots," International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2012.
[2] M. Mueller and R. D'Andrea, "Critical Subsystem Failure Mitigation in an Indoor UAV Testbed," International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2012.
Week 10, Oct 22nd Tuesday: NO CLASS, PROJECTS
Thursday:
[1] J. H. Gillula and C. J. Tomlin, "Reducing Conservativeness in Safety Guarantees by Learning Disturbances Online: Iterated Guaranteed Safe Online Learning," in Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems, 2012.
[2] O. Pettersson, "Execution monitoring in robotics: A survey," Robotics and Autonomous Systems, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 73-88, Nov. 2005.
Week 11, Oct 29th Tuesday (Tao):
[1] S. R. Buss, "Introduction to inverse kinematics with jacobian transpose, pseudoinverse and damped least squares methods," University of California, San Diego, 2004.
[2] M. Laffranchi, N. G. Tsagarakis, and D. G. Caldwell, "CompAct Arm: a Compliant Manipulator with Intrinsic Variable Physical Damping," in Robotics: Science and Systems, Sydney, Australia, 2012.
Thursday (Eric):
[1] G. Gioioso, G. Salvietti, M. Malvezzi, and D. Prattichizzo, "An Object-Based Approach to Map Human Hand Synergies onto Robotic Hands with Dissimilar Kinematics," Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems, Sydney, Australia, 2012.
[2] D. Mellinger, M. Shomin, N. Michael, and V. Kumar, "Cooperative grasping and transport using multiple quadrotors," in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems, 2010.
Final project status reports
Week 12, Nov 5th Tuesday (Mohsen):
[1] R. Y. Wang and J. Popovic, "Real-time hand-tracking with a color glove," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 28, no. 3, 2009.
[2] P. Agarwal, S. Kumar, J. Ryde, J. Corso, and V. Krovi, "Estimating Human Dynamics On-the-fly Using Monocular Video For Pose Estimation," in Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems, Sydney, Australia, 2012.
Thursday (Leonard):
[1] K. Gilpin, A. Knaian, and D. Rus, "Robot pebbles: One centimeter modules for programmable matter through self-disassembly," in 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010, pp. 2485-2492.
[2] K. Gilpin and D. Rus, "A distributed algorithm for 2D shape duplication with smart pebble robots," in 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2012, pp. 3285-3292.
Week 13, Nov 12th Tuesday (Andrew):
[1] M. Valenti, B. Bethke, J. P. How, D. P. de Farias, and J. Vian, "Embedding Health Management into Mission Tasking for UAV Teams," in American Control Conference, 2007. ACC ’07, 2007, pp. 5777-5783.
[2] O. Spinka and Z. Hanzalek, "Energy-Aware Navigation and Guidance Algorithms for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles," in 2011 IEEE 17th International Conference on Embedded and Real-Time Computing Systems and Applications (RTCSA), 2011, vol. 2, pp. 83-88.
Thursday:
[1] N. K. Yilmaz, C. Evangelinos, P. Lermusiaux, and N. M. Patrikalakis, "Path Planning of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for Adaptive Sampling Using Mixed Integer Linear Programming," IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 522-537, Oct. 2008.
Thurs: Last chance to review article
Week 14, Nov 19
Thanksgiving Weds-Fri
Tuesday: How to give talks Patrick Winston Video
Thursday: NO CLASS, Thanksgiving
Tues: Final project article due
Week 15, Nov 26th Tuesday: NO CLASS, Peer Review Articles
Thursday: CSE Colloquium 4pm, 115 Avery, Ella Atkins, University of Michigan
Thurs: Final project reviews due, Thurs 3pm
Week 15, Dec 4th Tuesday: Jinfu & Mohsen, John-Paul & Baoliang, Kearney & Eric
Thursday: Allan & Leonard, Sreeja & Tao, Mamur & Andrew
Project presentations


Last modified: Wed Nov 7 16:11:59 CST 2012