Teaching staff
| Lecturers | Teaching assistants | |
|---|---|---|
| Herman Bruyninckx | Joris De Schutter | Ruben Smits |
 |
 |
K.U.Leuven
Dept. Werktuigkunde Room 01.053 Celestijnenlaan 300B B-3001 Leuven (Heverlee) Belgium Tel: +32 (0)16 328056 |
Administrative matters
The official K.U.Leuven course description can be found here: H06U9AE.
This course is different from its companion course. While the contents of both courses may, at first sight, seem similar, the focus in both courses is very different: this course presents advanced engineering material, mostly in those robotics aspects in which K.U.Leuven has a strong research expertise: modelling and solving kinematics and dynamics of robot devices; motion and interaction specification and control; and task-directed and realtime 3D world perception. Hence, this course is only suited for students with a background that corresponds to that of Master in Mechanical Engineering, option Robotics & Mechatronics, or an international equivalent.
Organisation
Place and time of the first lecture: 27 September 2011, 10h35–12h35, room C300 – 00.81 (AUD. E), Department of Mechanical Engineering, Celestijnenlaan 300, Heverlee.
Other lectures will take place on the following dates: 29/09, 04/10, 06/10, 11/10, 13/10, 20/10.
No organised examination: this course uses continuous evaluation, such that there is no need for organized examination sessions in January. The evaluation takes into account the activity of the students during all organized course events: lectures, hands-on sessions, individual project discussions, and project presentations.
Course contents
This course explains the state of the art in intelligent robotic systems, i.e., machines that move (i.e., they move themselves and/or move objects in their environment, possibly with physical interaction with the environment), sense what is going on in their (immediate) neighbourhood, decide and act in order to achieve a planned task, while having only uncertain knowledge about themselves and their environment. “Motion”, “modelling”, “perception”, “planning”, “learning”, “adaptation”, “decision making”, “uncertainty” and “control” are key concepts in every intelligent robot, and hence also in this course.
Most robot controller architectures have three levels of control: (i) a lower, fast, realtime level that processes sensor data in a fast feedback control loop to generate the next steering signal for the robot's motors; (ii) a somewhat slower deliberative level, where the sensor signals and the robot actions are interpreted in the context of some mathematical model of the desired/expected dynamic behaviour of the robot (e.g., the robot should assemble a work piece), and (iii) the smartest strategic level, which makes the decisions about what tasks the robot should be doing. Most current robot controllers deal only with the lowest two levels.
This course also emphasis the system-level thinking: every robotic system is a trade-off between design constraints coming from the robot device, from the tasks it has to perform, and from the environment in which these tasks have to be executed. Forgetting one of these factors leads to inappropriate systems, or to over-optimization of one of the other components.
Every project starts with a search in the library; here is a list of possible starting points. Of course, the Web is another important source of information, but it should never be the only source!
Evaluation
There is no final examination session: students are continuously evaluated during the face-to-face meetings. Note that not the end-result of the project is evaluated, but the students' progress in their attempt to reach that result. Three criteria form the core of the evaluation:
-
Critical digestion of the studied material: students not only have to understand the project material, but also be very critical about what they read and be able to ask precise questions about the topics they do not understand.
This is the major attitude that this course wants to stimulate in the students. Make sure that you don't give criticism without knowing what you are talking about! Hence, a critical attitude goes together with an independent research and study attitude.
-
Progress in the digestion of the project material and towards the agreed-on project goals.
In each interactive session, the students should show their skills of being able to put the material that they have digested so far into a wider robotics perspective, to see generic foundations of different solutions or research domains, to go from analysis to synthesis, to reflect on their own trajectory of (not) understanding the material, etc.
-
Creativity in the discussion of project material, in identifying problems, and in suggesting potential solutions.
It's the students' responsibility to prove orally and interactively their qualities in all these criteria. So, students with poor assertivity skills and poor Dutch or English (spoken!) language skills are at risk.
Projects
Students make their choice of an individual project. (Multiple individual projects can be defined as sub-projects of a larger project, but the goal is to be able to evaluate each student individually.) The lecturers want to talk to each student interactively for four to five hours during the project, to discuss progress and problems. Each student is responsible for its own timing. Appointments can be made by emailing the lecturers.
Contact the lecturers before making a final decision on the project topic, in order to agree on the subject and the (approximate) goals to be achieved. The concrete contents of a project are always defined after discussion with the students, such that they get ample opportunity to incorporate their own ideas and interests, and to adapt the project description to their personal background.
Project suggestions — Autumn 2011
- Will be filled in after the course lectures have started…