IPRO-308: Collaborative mobile robot surveyors

Fall 2003 (Tue, Thu 3:15pm - 4:30pm, SB 201)

http://www.cs.iit.edu/$\sim$ agam/ipro308/

Administrative information

Instructor

• Gady Agam
• Office: SB-228a
• Contact: x7-5834,
• Office hours: Tue, Thu 6:30pm - 7:30pm

Sections

• IPRO-297-308
• IPRO-397-308
• IPRO-497-308
• IPRO-597-308

Grading

topic	type	weight
project plan and progress report	group	5 %
poster and presentation	group	20 %
website and final report	group	10 %
group achievements	group	15 %
participation and personal reports	personal	20 %
personal achievements	personal	30 %
total		100%

Notes:

1. Peer evaluation will be used in part to individually weight the grade of group tasks.

Project outline

Project description

Technological developments in recent years make it possible to construct small autonomous mobile platforms equipped with computing hardware and sensors that can communicate with each other and/or with a central station. The uses of such platforms are numerous and range from military and security applications to monitoring and inspection. While low level tasks such as obstacle avoidance should be handled by the mobile robot in order to free the attention of a human supervisor, higher level tasks may require user intervention based on images and other sensory information which is provided by the platform. The way in which tasks can be specified based on the limited information provided by the surveyor(s) in a natural way is an interesting problem without a simple solution. This is mainly due to the fact that 2D images and other sensory information are only partial representations of the real 3D world. In the previous semester the IPRO team built a basic mobile platform containing a controller unit, multiple range sensors, and wireless communication. In this semester the project will focus on the following:

• Odometry and motion control
• Obstacle avoidance and path planning
• Self localization
• Operating system and loader design

The project requires students with programming/hardware design skills capable and/or interested in: robotics, computer vision, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and hardware interface and design. The time devoted to the project by the participants is expected to be equal to the time devoted to a normal 3 credit hour course. The participants are expected to provide personal weekly progress reports. Please do not take this IPRO if you already have a very busy class schedule. Please note that all the participants are expected to have some programming skills.

What to expect from this course

IPRO courses vary in nature and so may differ from each other. The students is this IPRO section are expected to:

• Research and learn specific topics (with guidance)
• Propose solutions to the problems at hand
• Implement in software the proposed solutions, test them, and modify them if necessary.
• Report and document the obtained results.
• Devote a reasonable amount of time to the project beyond group meetings. Submit a weekly short individual progress report describing the progress made since the previous meeting.
• Work with other students (possibly from different disciplines).
• Integrate developed software with that of other students.
• Participate in group meetings and contribute to group reporting/presentation tasks.

Mode of operation

The following is the expected mode of operation in this course:

• The project team will meet once a week on Thursdays 3:15-4:30. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss general aspects of the project, report progress achieved since the last meeting, and discuss specific problems. Additional team meetings will be scheduled as necessary.

• The project team will be divided into several sub-groups each focusing on a different aspect of the project. The sub-groups are expected to meet individually every week.

• The project assumes a normal 3 credit-hours load (approximately 10 hours a week). Individual members of the team are expected to devote time accordingly and report their progress in a brief written report every week. This short report should be emailed prior to the meeting to ipro308@cs.iit.edu. A progress report may not be submitted later than one day passed its due date.

• The first few weeks of the semester will be devoted to a brief introduction to mobile robotics and to several programming assignments targeted at getting familiar with the development platform.

Textbooks

None required. Suggested reference books:

• Mobile robots, 2nd ed., J.L. Jones, H.M. Flynn, and B.A. Seiger, A.K. Peters 1998.
• Computational principles of mobile robotics, G. Dudek and M. Jenkin, Cambridge Press, 2000.

Tentative schedule

#	week	topic	assignment
1	Aug 25	introduction to mobile robotics	motor control
2	Sep 1	introduction to mobile robotics	sensor reading
3	Sep 8		project plan
4	Sep 15	motion control + path planning presentation
5	Sep 22	self localization + operating system presentation
6	Sep 29
7	Oct 6		progress report
8	Oct 13	performance feedback; no class (Fall break)
9	Oct 20	motion control + path planning demo
10	Oct 27	self localization + operating system demo
11	Nov 3	integration
12	Nov 10	integration
13	Nov 17	integration	poster and presentation
14	Nov 24	no class (Thanksgiving)	final report
15	Dec 1	demo and presentation rehearsal	IPRO day (12/5)