Introduction to Experimental RoboticsCSCI 1108 — Lecture 1Course Introduction

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Administrivia

Section 1: Vlado Keselj, vlado@cs.dal.ca. Office CS 432Section 2: Nauzer Kalyaniwalla, nauzer@dal.ca. Office CS 221Office Hours, Vlado: Tuesday 13:30–15:00/Open Door.Office Hours, Nauzer: Thursday 10:00–11:30/Open Door.This is a lab course. You need to attend 2 lab sessions/week.Labs start next week.Make sure to attend sections you are assigned to.Lab attendance is required.Head T.A. for the course: Mitchell Kane (mkane@cs.dal.ca).Projects: small (10%) and a large (35%) project.Both require a written report.Quizzes: Four in-class quizzes (16%) and a final exam.Important to contribute to group work in every lab.This term we will have peer-evaluations.

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Course Objectives & Format

To learn about Robotics.

To experience working in a team.

To learn project management.

Course is hands-on: Lab tutorials build towardsprojects.

Projects done in Lab time.

To have fun.

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What is a Robot?

Robot: Word coined by Czech writer Karel Capek,from Roboti in Czech for “hard labour” in a play: Rassum’sUniversal Robots. Roboti in Czech meaning “hard labour” -suggested by the brother of the writer.

‘Robot’ is a very general term: Could refer to software robots,Mostly business/office automation. See:https://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2016/03/13/an-introduction-to-robotic-process-automation/

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https://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2016/03/13/an-introduction-to-robotic-process-automation/

What is a Robot?

Most people think: The reality: Papero from NEC

https://robotnews.wordpress.com/2006/04/01/the-childcare-robot-papero/

The video of Papero is in Japanese, but watch between (1:10 and 1:40):

https://www.necplatforms.co.jp/solution/papero_i/

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https://robotnews.wordpress.com/2006/04/01/the-childcare-robot-papero/https://www.necplatforms.co.jp/solution/papero_i/

What is a Robot?There are swarm robots: Typically 100’s of programmable,autonomous, self-organizing units. https://player.vimeo.com/video/103329200?color=1cafeb&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&player_id=103329200&autoplay=1

Future military applications are a matter of time.1024 Collaborative robots:

Autonomous vehicles are coming on the scene: A video fromWaymo: Google’s self driving project & another from Tesla:https://youtu.be/tlThdr3O5Qo & https://digg.com/video/watch-a-fully-autonomous-tesla-drive-itself-around-town-and-find-itself-a-parking-spot

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https://player.vimeo.com/video/103329200?color=1cafeb&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&player_id=103329200&autoplay=1https://player.vimeo.com/video/103329200?color=1cafeb&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&player_id=103329200&autoplay=1https://youtu.be/tlThdr3O5Qohttps://digg.com/video/watch-a-fully-autonomous-tesla-drive-itself-around-town-and-find-itself-a-parking-spothttps://digg.com/video/watch-a-fully-autonomous-tesla-drive-itself-around-town-and-find-itself-a-parking-spot

What is a Robot?

Industrial Robots: The KR1000 Titan, from Kuka Roboticscan manipulate up to 1000 Kg.

Space Robots - Destined for the ISS:

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What a Robot is:The small sample of robots above share the property of autonomy:“a robot is a physically embodied artificially intelligent agent thatcan take actions that have effects on the physical world,” saysroboticist Anca Dragan of UC Berkeley.From Wired: 08.24.2017 What Is a Robot?The wiki article on robots is worth reading.So, robots:

Are able to sense their environment and react to changes.May be able to manipulate objects: Needs to sense thegeometry of said object.May be mobile - hence can navigate.In fact motion requires: Planning, Perception, Spatialrepresentation.

Robotics is at the nexus of Engineering, Artificial Intelligence andMathematics. This brings intelligent behaviour in the natural world.

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Robotics in Industry

https://www.wsj.com/articles/meet-the-new-generation-of-robots-for-manufacturing-1433300884

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/meet-the-new-generation-of-robots-for-manufacturing-1433300884

The Robots are Coming.....soonThe hype has not kept up with progress:

For Elon Musk, the driverless car is always right around the corner.At an investor day event last month focused on Tesla’s autonomousdriving technology, the CEO predicted that his company would havea million cars on the road next year with self-driving hardware “at areliability level that we would consider that no one needs to payattention.”If there are a million Tesla robo-taxis functioning on the road in2020, I will eat them. Perhaps @rodneyabrooks will eat half withme? - Kai-Fu Lee (https://twitter.com/kaifulee)

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https://twitter.com/kaifulee

The Robots are Coming.....soon

“At best, they may be able to create a system that functions under

certain limited scenarios. It will not be fully autonomous in 2020 or

anytime in the next several years” - Sam Abuelsamid, research

analyst for Navigant.

Chris Urmson, the former leader of Google’s self-driving car project,

once hoped that his son wouldn’t need a driver’s license because

driverless cars would be so plentiful by 2020. Now the CEO of the

self-driving startup Aurora, Urmson says that driverless cars will be

slowly integrated onto our roads“over the next 30 to 50 years.”

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But, when the Big Dog gets involved...

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/technology/

google-adds-to-its-menagerie-of-robots.html?_r=0

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https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/technology/google-adds-to-its-menagerie-of-robots.html?_r=0https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/technology/google-adds-to-its-menagerie-of-robots.html?_r=0