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CS 7630: Autonomous Robotics
Spring 2007 
Cherry Emerson 204
(Tuesday, Thursday   12:05PM-1:25PM) 
 

Instructor: Prof. Ronald C. Arkin
Office: TSRB 238A
Office hours: TBD Other times by appointment
Phone: Office: (404) 894-8209
e-mail arkin@cc.gatech.edu
(http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~arkin)


TA: Zsolt Kira
Office Hours: M 11am-12pm, R 11am-12pm, or by appt.
Office: TSRB 238 (near Arkin's office) or Mobile Robot Lab (S27, in basement).


 

Course Description
Course Syllabus
Links
HW #1 (Due 01/25/2007)
Term Paper Description and Assignment (Project Abstract: Due 03/08/2007! Final Project Submission: 04/19/2007)
HW #2 (New deadline extension!Due 02/15/2007)
HW #3 (Due 04/12/2007)
Robots available for project use
Sample Midterm
Project Presentation Schedule (for 04/24 and 04/26)

Class swiki  


Course Description

1. Prerequisite: CS 4600 or equivalent or instructor's permission

    A survey of autonomous robotics as viewed from a variety of disciplines and as applied in artificial intelligence. Neuroscience and cognitive psychology are studied as a source of paradigms for machine autonomy.  Various cybernetic issues will be explored from a multi-disciplinary vantage point.  High-level computer vision and other sensor modalities and their application to intelligent robotics will also be studied within this context.

2. Class structure

    The subject matter of this course is often controversial and hopefully equally stimulating. It is a goal to have lively discussions with various interpretations of the subject matter. We are dealing with approaches to problems that will hopefully provide solutions in extremely difficult task domains. Consequently your classroom participation is essential.
    There will be two meetings per week (Tuesday and Thursday), starting promptly at 12:05. Your attendance, of course, is mandatory as is your participation in classroom discussions.
    You are required to complete all assigned readings prior to class and you must be prepared to present or discuss the material contained therein.

 3. Student evaluation (grading)

    As mentioned earlier, classroom attendance and participation are crucial to passing this course.  You will be evaluated after each class regarding your contributions to the discussion and your knowledge of the subject matter derived from the readings. In addition, there will be at least one presentation involving each student on material relevant to the course (20%). The remainder of your grade will be derived from a term project and homework (30%), and the midterm (20%) and final exam (20%).
    Students are expected to adhere to the Honor Code in this class. All work is to be accomplished independently unless expressly stated in writing otherwise (e.g., as in a team project). Collaboration on other homework and/or take home exams is not permitted.

4. Readings

    The text for this course is Behavior-based Robotics, Arkin, MIT Press, 1998. Other recommended books are:

·        Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Robots: Case Studies of Successful Robot Systems, Kortenkamp, et al, MIT Press, 1998

Course Syllabus
 

Date

Topic

Reading

Leader

Assignments

1/9

Introduction 

Chapter 1 (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

1/11 

Introduction (II)  

Arkin

1/16 

Animal Behavior 

 Chapter 2 (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

1/18 

Lab Tour

 

Arkin

1/23

Robot Behavior 

Chapter 3  (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

1/25

Behavior-based Architectures

 Chapter 4 (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

HW #1 DUE!!

1/30

Subsumption

Brooks [Paper PDF] [Powerpoint slides]

John Hutchinson, Emilie Hayne*

2/1

Knowledge Representations

Chapter 5 (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

2/6

SLAM

Thrun [PDF] [PDF of slides]

Sebastien Beaudet, Philip Case*

2/8

Hybrid Architectures

Chapter 6 (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

2/13

Perception I

Chapter 7 (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

2/15

Non-vision Sensing

Krotkov [Paper PDF] [Powerpoint slides]

Kyle Woodlock, Craig Cambias*

HW #2 DUE!!

2/20 

Perception II

Chapter 7 (Arkin)

Arkin

2/22 

Heterogeneous Perception and Knowledge Sharing

Billard and Dautenhahn [PDF]

Zsolt Kira

2/27

Visual Sensing (non-SLAM)

Slides: [PDF1], [PDF2] Readings: Baten et al. [PDF], Miura et al. [PDF] 

Bryan Horvat, Olivier Tayeg*

3/1

MIDTERM EXAM

 

 

3/6 

Adaptive Behavior

Chapter 8 (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

3/8

Developmental Learning

Weng et al. [PDF] Slides: [PDF]

Liam MacDermed, Jennifer Garcia

Project Abstract DUE!!

3/13

Military Unmanned Vehicles (Case Study)

 Ani Paper: Hsie et al. [PDF] Slides: [PDF]

Arkin

3/15

DARPA Grand Challenge

JFR [PDF][slides]

Albert Sacks, Dom Larkin*

3/20 

RECESS

 

 

3/22

RECESS

 

 

3/27

 Entertainment Robotics

New class date and location for this date ONLY! Monday 3/26 (RIM Seminar) TSRB 132-134 at noon. There will be NO class on 3/27

 Reading: Chernova [PDF] [slides]

Arkin

3/29

Humanoid Planning

Paper: Mataric [PDF] Slides: [PDF]  

 Thibault Bizollan, Stephen Campos*

4/3

Multirobot Systems

Chapter 9 (Arkin) [slides]

Arkin

4/5

Swarm Robotics

Paper: Labella et al. [PDF] Slides: [PDF] 

Travis Fischer, Jiuguang Wang*

4/10

Probabilistic Robot Control

Readings: Koenig & Simmons [PDF] Endo & Arkin [PDF]  

Yoichiro Endo

4/12

Trust and Autonomous Robots

Reading: Humphrey[PDF] 

Alan Wagner

HW #3 DUE!!

4/17

Fringe Robotics

Chapter 10 (Arkin) Slides: [PDF]

Arkin + Class 

4/19

Robot Ethics

Slides: [PDF] 

Arkin

Project Submission DUE!!

4/24 

Project Presentations

 

 

4/26 

Project Presentations

 

 

Take-home Final Exam out. Due Tuesday May 1 10:00 AM (end of regularly scheduled exam period)

* Denotes student presentation
 

    Subject to change

(Arkin) = Behavior-Based Robotics, MIT Press 1998.
   

Links

The Mobile Robot Laboratory home page
MissionLab software home page
TeamBots software home page
Borg Lab
RIM@GT

Home pages of Autonomous Robotics researchers around the world
(this list is not complete:)

Agre Philip
Albus James S.
Arkin Ronald C.
Atkeson Chris
Bekey George A.
Borenstein Johann
Brooks Rodney
Christensen Henrik I.
Dudek Gregory
Durfee Edmund H.  
Gat Erann  
Horswill Ian
Kaelbling Leslie P
Koenig Sven
Konolidge Kurt
Kortenkamp David
Kuc Roman
Kuipers Benjamin
 Latombe Jean-Claude  
Mataric Maja  
Miller David P.
Moravec Hans  
Parker Lynne E.
Pfeifer Rolf
Pirjanian Paolo
Rosenblatt Julio
Shultz Alan
 Simmons Reid
Thrun Sebastian