About this course: How can robots use their motors and sensors to move around in an unstructured environment? You will understand how to design robot bodies and behaviors that recruit limbs and more general appendages to apply physical forces that confer reliable mobility in a complex and dynamic world. We develop an approach to composing simple dynamical abstractions that partially automate the generation of complicated sensorimotor programs. Specific topics that will be covered include: mobility in animals and robots, kinematics and dynamics of legged machines, and design of dynamical behavior via energy landscapes.
Created by: University of Pennsylvania
Taught by: Daniel E. Koditschek, Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering
School of Engineering and Applied Science
| Basic Info |
Course 3 of 6 in the
Robotics Specialization.
|
| Commitment | 4 weeks of study, 2-4 hours/week |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Introduction: Motivation and Background
We start with a general consideration of animals, the exemplar of mobility in nature. This leads us to adopt the stance of bioinspiration rather than biomimicry, i.e., extracting principles rather than appearances and applying them systematically to our machi...
8 videos, 3 readings, 2 practice quizzes
Graded: 1.1.1 Why and how do animals move
Graded: 1.1.2 Bioinspiration
Graded: 1.1.3 Legged Mobility: dynamic motion and the management of energy
WEEK 2
Behavioral (Templates) & Physical (Bodies)
We’ll start with behavioral components that take the form of what we call “templates:” very simple mechanisms whose motions are fundamental to the more complex limbed strategies employed by animal and robot locomotors. We’ll focus on the “compass gait” (the mo...
8 videos
Graded: 2.1.1 Walking like a rimless wheel
Graded: 2.1.2 Running like a spring-loaded pendulum
Graded: 2.1.3 Controlling the spring-loaded inverted pendulum
Graded: 2.2.1 Metrics and Scaling: mass, length, strength
Graded: 2.2.2 Materials, manufacturing, and assembly
Graded: 2.2.3 Design: figures of merit, robustness
Graded: 2.3.1 Actuator technologies
WEEK 3
Anchors: Embodied Behaviors
Now we’ll put physical links and joints together and consider the geometry and the physics required to understand their coordinated motion. We’ll learn about the geometry of degrees of freedom. We’ll then go back to Newton and learn a compact way to write down...
6 videos
Graded: 3.1.1 Review of kinematics (MATLAB)
Graded: 3.1.2 Introduction to dynamics and control
Graded: 3.2.1 Sprawled posture runners
Graded: 3.2.2 Quadrupeds
Graded: 3.2.3 Bipeds
Graded: Simply stabilized SLIP (MATLAB)
WEEK 4
Composition (Programming Work)
We now introduce the concept of dynamical composition, reviewing two types: a composition in time that we term “sequential”; and composition in space that we call “parallel.” We’ll put a bit more focus into that last concept, parallel composition and review w...
10 videos, 2 practice quizzes
Graded: 4.1.1 Sequential and Parallel Composition
Graded: 4.2.1 Why is parallel hard?
Graded: 4.2.3a RHex
Graded: 4.3.1 Compositions of vertical hoppers
Graded: MATLAB: composition of vertical hoppers
Graded: 4.3.2 Same composition, different bodies
Graded: 4.3.3 Same body, different compositions
Graded: 4.3.4 Transitions
FAQs
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Coursework
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University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A member of the Ivy League, Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and considers itself to be the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.
Pricing
| Audit | Purchase Course | |
|---|---|---|
| Access to course materials | Available | Available |
| Access to graded materials | Not available | Available |
| Receive a final grade | Not available | Available |
| Earn a shareable Course Certificate | Not available | Available |
Ratings and Reviews
This course deals with robotic mobility, in particular covering legged robots. The topic is covered in detail, with a focus on practical applications from a research perspective. The amount of work required is extensive, with a greater load as compared with usual courses. Nevertheless, you are really able to learn the state of the art in robot locomotion.
The material itself is worth a few stars. Clearly lots of work has gone into making some interesting interactive matlab demos. some of the quizzes are unnecessarily confusing.
Excellent course!
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Slides would help so much and some important thins like GRC requires a supplementary material.