Cognitive Robotics: Lectures

Week 1
Mon 1/14	No class.
Wed 1/18	Goal: Understand what the course is about. Lecture: C++ for Java programmers Videos: Chiara chess, Chiara piano Read: Seven Big Ideas in Robotics and How To Teach Them
Fri 1/14	Goal: Learn how to run Tekkotsu and interact with the robot. Lab 1: Teleoperation with ControllerGUI; Sensor Observer
Week 2
Mon 1/21	Martin Luther King Day: no class.
Wed 1/23	Goal: Learn how robot behaviors are created. Lecture: State machines Read: Wiki pages on State machine shorthand, node class definitions, and defining new node classes
Fri 1/25	Goal: Learn how to run and visualize your own behaviors on the robot. Read: Lab: The Storyboard Tool Lab 2: Compiling and running code; event logger; Storyboard tool
Week 3
Mon 1/28	Goal: Understand the event-based architecture that underlies state machines. Lecture: Behaviors and events Read: Tekkotsu and software engineering
Wed 2/1	Goal: Learn how to use the Pilot to move the robot through the world. Lecture: Navigating with the Pilot Read: Navigating with the Tekkotsu Pilot, by Watson & Touretzky (2011) Video: Visual Odometry in Tekkotsu by Josh Belanich Optional/supplementary: Wiki pages on Lab: The Pilot and Odometry and Lab: The Pilot and Localization
Fri 2/1	Goal: Learn how to use the Pilot to move the robot through the world. Lab 3: Navigating with the Pilot
Week 4
Mon 2/4	Goal: Learn how robots see color, and the basics of robot vision. Read: The Mirage simulator and virtual worlds Lecture: The Tekkotsu vision pipeline
Wed 2/6	Goal: Learn to use the MapBuilder to detect shapes in a camera image. Lecture: Dual coding representations and the MapBuilder
Fri 2/8	Goal: Practice using the MapBuilder to solve robot vision problems. Lab 4: The MapBuilder
Week 5
Mon 2/11	Goals: Understand (1) robot-centered maps and world maps, and (2) ways for state nodes to communicate. Lecture: Local and world maps, and Advanced state machine programming
Wed 2/13	Goals: Learn about (1) functors and applying tests to shapes, and (2) solving vision problems using sketches. Lecture: Shape predicates, and Sketches Read: How qualitative spatial reasoning can improve strategy game AIs, by Forbus, Mahoney, & Dill (2001). Skim: DualCoding::visops:: documentation.
Fri 2/15	Lab 5: Local maps, and sketch operations
Week 6
Mon 2/18	Goal: understand Ullman's "visual routines" proposal for intermediate-level vision. Read: S. Ullman (1984) Visual routines. Cognition 18:97-157. Lecture: Visual routines
Wed 2/20	Goal: learn how to make the robot execute pre-specified motion sequences. Lecture: Postures and motion sequences Videos: standlie.mp4, pan_head.mp4, headwag.mp4, fallover.mp4
Fri 2/22	Lab 6: Postures and motion sequences Talk: at 3:30 in NSH 1305, Dr. Andrea Thomaz from Georgia Tech will speak about Designing Learning Interactions for Robots
Week 7
Mon 2/25	Goal: Learn how the robot's body is represented as a kinematic tree, and how to use forward kinematics to calculate the positions of end-effectors. Read: A gentle introduction to homogenous transformations and robot kinematics, by Jennifer Kay. Video: Denavit-Hartenberg Reference Frame Layout Lecture: Kinematics
Wed 2/27	Goal: Learn to use inverse kinematics to precisely position the robot's limbs. Lecture: Continuation of Monday's lecture; same slides. Video: Tentacle IK and path planning by Jonathan Coens
Fri 3/1	Lab 7: Forward and inverse kinematics
Week 8
Mon 3/4	Goal: Learn to use Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRTs) to plan a path from a start state to a goal state. Lecture: Path planning Read: RRT-Connect: an efficient approach to single-query path planning, J. J. Kuffner, Jr., and S. M. LaValle, ICRA, 2000. Video: Tekkotsu hand/eye system path planning by Glenn Nickens
Wed 3/6	Class: meet with Mark to discuss your Visual Routines Projects. (Dave will be out of town.)
Fri 3/8	Mid-Semester Break
Week 9
Mon 3/11	Spring Break
Wed 3/13	Spring Break
Fri 3/15	Spring Break
Week 10
Mon 3/18	Lecture: Particle filters
Wed 3/21	Lecture: Object recognition
Fri 3/23	Lab 8: Mirage worlds, and the particle filter
Week 11
Mon 3/15	Class: Grasper exercise. Reading: Playing Tic-Tac-Toe with Tekkotsu: The Development of the Grasper, Glenn V. Nickens, MS thesis, Norfolk State University.
Wed 3/27	Grasper exercise.
Fri 3/29	Grasper exercise. Video: Playing Fetch with the Calliope2SP Robot, by Henry Williams