Learn how to design, build, and program dynamical, legged robots that can operate in the real world. How do robots climb stairs, traverse shifting sand and navigate through hilly and rocky terrain? This course, part of the Robotics MicroMasters program, will teach you how to think about complex mobility challenges that arise when robots are deployed in unstructured human and natural environments.
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You will learn how to design and program the sequence of energetic interactions that must occur between sensors and mechanical actuators in order to ensure stable mobility. We will expose you to underlying and still actively developing concepts, while providing you with practical examples and projects.
What you'll learn
- The design and analysis of agile, bioinspired, sensorimotor systems
- How to develop simplified models of complex dynamic systems
- Ways to utilize simplified models to achieve dynamical mobility tasks
Course Syllabus
Week 1: Big-Picture Motivation
Week 2: Mechanical Bodies (Physical Robot Hardware)
Week 3: Mechanical Dynamical Systems
Week 4: Projects: Background in Applications of Dynamical Systems
Week 5: Templates: Low DoF Reference Dynamical Mobility Models
Week 6: Formal Anchors: High DoF Bodies Whose Mobility Has a Mathematically Demonstrated Template
Week 7: Empirical Anchors: High DoF Bodies Whose Mobility Has an Experimentally Demonstrated Template
Week 8: Project: Embedding Low DoF Reference Dynamics for High DoF Mobility Primitives
Week 9: Sequential and Parallel Composition of Simple Mobility Primitives
Week 10: Coordination of Multi-legged Gaits
Week 11: Navigating the Environment via Steady and Transitional Mobility Behaviors
Week 12: Project: Achieving Dynamical Tasks in Complex Environments by Composing Dynamical Primitives
Prerequisites
- Good understanding of multivariable calculus and some prior exposure to linear algebra and ordinary differential equations.
- We will be making specific use of the kinematics and dynamics ideas developed in the ROBO3x - Robotics: Dynamics and Control, certain linear algebra techniques in the ROBO1x-Robotics: Fundamentals, and various ideas and techniques presented in the ROBO2x-Robotics: Vision Intelligence and Machine Learning.
