Introduction to Robotics

Organsiation

Lecturer: Dr.-Ing. Christoph Steup

Tutorials: Sebstian Mai

Credits: 5 CP

Times and Dates

Lecture

  • Fridays 17:00 - 18:30
  • Room: G29 - K58
  • Date: 08.04.2022 - 01.07.2022

Link to LSF

Tutorials

Group 1
  • Time: Tuesday 15:15 - 16:45
  • Room: not yet known
  • Date: 05.04.2022 - 05.07.2022
Group 2
  • Time: Wednesday 15:15 - 16:45
  • Room: not yet known
  • Date: 06.04.2022 - 06.07.2022

Link to LSF

Language

  • Lecture: English
  • Tutorials: English/German as necessary

Assignment to Curriculum:

Typical Placement in Curriculum: B.Sc. INF, WIF, INGIF, CV, from 3. Semester

  • B.Sc. CV - WPF Informatik
  • B.Sc. INF - WPF Informatik / WPF Technische Informatik
  • B.Sc. INGINF - WPF Informatik / WPF Technische Informatik
  • B.Sc. WIF-WPF Gestalten & Anwenden

Approximated Effort

Total: 150 h

  • 2h per Week Lecture = 26h
  • 2h per Week Exercise = 26h
  • approx. 3h Recap and Self study of Lecture per Week ~ 40h
  • approx. 5h Preparation of Exercise Tasks per Week ~ 58h

Prerequisites (recommended)

  • Einführung in die Informatik
  • Intelligente Systeme

Registration

In addition to the registration in LSF you need to provide a short motivational letter (1/2 A4) indicating your interest in taking the course to steup@ovgu.de till 03.04.2022.

Goals

  • Understanding the Structure of Complex Robotic Systems
  • Building Complex Robots and Robotic Systems from Building
    Blocks
  • Aspects of Robotic Systems and their Impact on Performance
  • Developing Robotic System Software using ROS
  • Extending Single Robot Systems to Multi-Robot Systems
  • Developing Application-Specific Behavior using Standard
    Behaviors for Navigation and Path Planning

Content

The lecture Introduction to Robotics will teach students the fundamental concepts of robotics from a top-down perspective, focused on mobile robots.

The lecture starts with some exemplary robotic systems to show the variety of system in action today. Afterwards, multiple views on robotics systems are shown, which highlight different aspects like communication, behavior, movement, and system setup. The lecture continues with a description of multiple communication paradigms typically used in the robotic context and their relation to physical communication mechanisms. The next topic highlights some components typically found for perception and actuation like cameras, LiDARs, Distance Sensors, linear and revolute motors and piezo actuators. Afterwards, mechanisms to combine perception and actuation using low-level control mechanisms are shown. The shown mechanisms are reactive behaviors based on rule-sets and state-machines and feed-back-based control. Additionally, some kinematic models for movement of robots are highlighted like differential drive, Ackerman steering and  holonomic movement. The next part of the lecture focus on localization of mobile robots using external mechanisms like Triangulation and Trilateration and internal mechanisms like SLAM and landmark tracking. The last two parts of the lecture discuss algorithms for path-and trajectory planning, and the extension to multi-robot systems.

The exercises to the lecture will highlight the concepts of the lecture with practical examples based on robotic simulations in ROS with the Gazebo simulator.

 

Lectures

In this section, you will find the slides of the lectures with and without contained videos. The password for all the materials is shown in Moodle for registered course members only.

You can find the lecture recordings on Mediasite in the Introduction to Robotics Channel.

# Date Topics Slides (small) Slides large Update
00 08.04.2022 Organization Slides (pure) Slides (with Videos)  
01 22.04.2022 Robot Types and Robot State Slides (pure) Slides (with Videos)  
02 29.04.2022 Behaviors and Reliability Slides (pure) Slides (with Videos)  
03 06.05.2022 Data Flow and Components Sides (pure) Slides (with Videos)  
04 13.05.2022 Sensors and Uncertainty Slides (pure) Slides (with Videos)  
05 20.05.2022 Sensor Types and Actuators Slides (pure) Slides (with Videos)  
06 27.05.2022 Communication Slides (pure) Slides (with Videos)  
07 03.06.2022 Localization Slides   08.06.2022
08 10.06.2022 State Estimation and Fusion Slides    
12 17.06.2022 Collaboration     Not relevant for the examination
09 24.06.2022 Control Slides (pure)  Slides (with Videos)  
10 01.07.2022 SLAM Slides    

 

Tutorials

 

Date Topic Assignment Slides
05.04. / 06.04. Introduction to Assignment 1 Programming Assignment Introduction, Shell, Python, ROS
12.04. / 13.04. Submission Assignment 1 Programming Assignment  
19.04. / 20.04. Introduction to Assignment 2 Programming Assignment  Introduction to DrivingSwarm
26.04. / 27.04. Tutorial / Q&A    
03.05. / 04.05. Programming Assignment 2 - submission Programming Assignment  
10.05. / 11.05. Theory Sheet 1 (submission) Sheet 1  
17.05. / 18.05. Introduction to Assignment 3 Programming Assignment  State-Estimation
24.05. / 25.05.  -- No tutorial in this week --    
31.05. / 01.06. Programming Assignment 3 - submission Programming Assignment  
07.06. / 08.06. Theory Sheet 2 (submission) Sheet 2  
14.06. / 15.06. Introduction Assignment 4 Programming Assignment  
21.06. / 22.06. Tutorial / Q&A    
28.06. / 29.06. Theory Sheet 3 (submission) Sheet 3 Filters.ipynb  
05.07. / 06.07. Programming Assignment 4 - submission Programming Assignment  

 

 

Examination

Oral Exam after end of the lecture period

To be eligible for the exam, you need to have taken part in the exercise and solved:

  • 66% of all theoretical tasks
  • 4 of 4 practical tasks

Students requiring a "Schein" will get it automatically after fulfilling the requirements for the exam.

Literature

Last Modification: 01.07.2022 - Contact Person: Webmaster