Motion and Manipulation 2012/2013

Teacher: Frank van der Stappen
email: A.F.vanderStappen@uu.nl
office: Buys Ballotlaboratorium 422

Grades for the retake of December 17, 2012, new average grades, and new final grades are now available here!

Grades for the written test of November 7, 2012, grades for the technical summary, average grades, and final grades are now available here!

Motion and manipulation are key issues in the field of robotics and automation, but they also play a major role in virtual environments and games. We will study models and planning problems for tasks that involve motion or manipulation. The course will provide a solid basis in kinematics, which studies the motion of a body without taking into account its mass or the forces acting on it. We will consider representations of rotations, orientations, and rigid transformations. Our study of manipulation concentrates on forward and inverse kinematics for articulated structures such as arms, models for grasp analysis based on velocities and forces, and on simple non-prehensile forms of manipulation such as pushing. In addition we will focus on the fundamentals of control and sensing.

Literature

Parts of Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, and 15 of the book Theory of Applied Robotics by Reza N. Jazar (which can be read online at Utrecht University), parts of Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the book Mechanics of Robotic Manipulation by Matthew T. Mason, parts of Chapters 1 and 2 from the no longer available book Fundamentals of Robotics: Analysis and Control by Robert J. Schilling, and parts of Chapters 3 and 4 from the book Collision Detection in Interactive 3D Environments by Gino van den Bergen. These chapters are supplemented by slides and class-room notes.
Copies of the relevant pages of the book by Schilling are available for reference, and copies of the relevant pages of the book by Van den Bergen are also available for reference

Exam form

The final grade depends on a written test (60 %) and a technical summary (40 %).

Written test

The test covers all material treated in class plus all designated chapters from the aforementioned books. The grade for the written test should be at least 5.0 to pass the entire course. An example of a written test (based on former course content) can be found here. Another example of a written test can be found here. The separate sheet you need for exercise 4 of that test, can be found here.

Technical summary

The technical summary is a 10-page (approximately 5000-word) report in English explaing (in depth, yet in your own words) the ideas, techniques and algorithms presented in the assigned papers on a specific subject. Hand in a paper copy of your summary report before Wednesday October 24, 2012, at 17:00. The grade for the technical summary should be at least 5.0 to pass the entire course. Send an email to the teacher to request an assignment. Subjects will be assigned on a random basis; requests for a specific subject will not be honored. Here is the list of subjects. The numbers in the list below correspond to the numbers in the list of subjects.

Course schedule

The schedule below shows the tentative dates and times.

Date Time Material Slides
Fri Sep 7 09:00-10:45 introduction and organization introductory slides (ppt) (pdf)
Wed Sep 12 15:15-17:00 robotics and geometric modeling:
J: Section 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 + notes on modeling 		robotics slides (ppt) (pdf)
geometric modeling slides (ppt) (pdf)
Fri Sep 14 09:00-10:45 rotation kinematics:
S: Section 2.1, 2.2, 2.3;
J: Section 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 		kinematics slides: rotations (ppt) (pdf)
Wed Sep 19 15:15-17:00 orientation kinematics:
J: Section 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3,4 		kinematics slides: orientations (ppt) (pdf)
Fri Sep 21 09:00-10:45 rigid transformations:
S: Section 2.4;
J: Section 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 		kinematics slides: rigid transformations (ppt) (pdf)
Wed Sep 26 15:15-17:00 forward kinematics:
S: Sections 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8;
J: Section 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 		kinematics slides: arms (ppt) (pdf)
example arm slides (ppt) (pdf)
kinematics slides: branching and cyclic structures (ppt) (pdf)
Fri Sep 28 09:00-10:45 inverse kinematics:
J: Section 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 		inverse kinematics slides (ppt) (pdf)
Wed Oct 3 15:15-17:00 trajectory generation:
J: Section 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4
control and sensing:
J: Section 15.1, 15.3, 15.4 		trajectory generation slides (ppt) (pdf)
control slides (ppt) (pdf)
Fri Oct 5 09:00-10:45 configuration spaces and obstacles:
no textbook material 		configuration space slides (ppt) (pdf)
Wed Oct 10 15:15-17:00 collision detection: narrow phase:
B: Section 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 		-
Fri Oct 12 09:00-10:45 collision detection: broad phase:
no textbook material 		collision detection slides (ppt) (pdf)
Wed Oct 17 15:15-17:00 no class -
Fri Oct 19 09:00-10:45 no class -
Wed Oct 24 15:15-17:00 form closure grasps and caging:
M: Sections 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.6, 5.6 		form closure slides (ppt) (pdf)
Fri Oct 26 09:00-10:45 force closure grasps:
J: Sections 4.8, 4.9;
M: Sections 3.2, 3.3, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5,7 		force closure slides (ppt) (pdf)
Wed Oct 31 15:15-17:00 pushing and squeezing:
M: Section 7.4 		manipulation slides (ppt) (pdf)
Fri Nov 2 09:00-10:45 summary and exam exercises

J = Theory of Applied Robotics by Reza N. Jazar,
M = Mechanics of Robotic Manipulation by Matthew T. Mason,
S = Fundamentals of Robotics: Analysis and Control by Robert J. Schilling,
B = Collision Detection in Interactive 3D Environments by Gino van den Bergen.

A.F.vanderStappen@uu.nl,