RI 16-662: Robot Autonomy

Instructor: Siddhartha Srinivasa (siddh "addressed at" cs.cmu.edu)
TA: Shervin Javdani (sjavdani "addressed at" cmu.edu)
Lectures: Mon and Wed, 3:00-4:20, GHC 4215
Office hours: Wed 1:30 - 3:00, NSH 4502 (Personal Robotics Lab)
Announcements: CMU Blackboard

Description

Robot autonomy delves into the interplay between perception, manipulation, navigation, and learning required to develop fully autonomous systems. We will focus on application domains like the home, retail, and healthcare and identify common themes and key bottlenecks. We will discuss the state of the art algorithms, their computational and hardware requirements, and their limitations. An end-to-end system often requires mixing and matching various algorithms and you will learn some tried and true methods for making systematic decisions. Students will learn how to address clutter and uncertainty in manipulation tasks, develop robust object recognition algorithms in real-world scenes, navigate safely in human spaces, and build behavior engines for high-level tasks, among many other topics.

Important Dates

February 18 - project proposals due
April 1 - project midterm reports due
April 24 - final presentations 1,2,3
April 29 - final presentations 4,5,6
May 1 - final presentations 7,8,9
May 1 - last day of class
May 10 - final presentation and video due
May 16 - grades due

Homework Policy

You are required to work in groups of 3 for all homeworks (except HW0, which you must submit individually). All assignments are due at midnight on the specified day. Each person has 2 slip days that can be used for any homework, but not project deadlines. After that, you will lose 20% of the total grade for every day you are late.

Assignments

Submission Instructions
Installation Instructions
HW0
HW1
HW2
HW3
HW4

Class Projects

Your project is worth 40% of your total grade. They must include a real robotic system. We've gathered a few ideas from different groups, but you are free to contact professors on your own and pick a different project.
Project Ideas

Old Projects:
2012
Title Team
Towers of Hanoi Darukhanavala, Lycas, Mittal, Suresh
The Tick-bot Hussain, Zhang, Joseph, Chanda
HERB the Builder Hamm, Komoroski, Roberts, Viola
Shooting hoops Bajaj, Hu, Kumar, Thomas
Picasso-bot Coyne, Rao, Subramanian

Schedule

This schedule is an approximate plan, and is subject to change during the semester.

Day Date Topic Assignments Reading Notes
M 14 Jan Introduction Installation Instructions Out OpenRAVE. URL Notes
W 16 Jan Grasping - Pipeline and Theory Chapter 5 Multifingered Hand Kinematics, A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation, Murray, Li, Sastry, 1994. URL
The condition for contact grasp stability, Montana, ICRA 1991. PDF
 Notes
M 21 Jan No class - MLK Day HW0 Out
W 23 Jan TA Lecture: OpenRAVE and Python Notes
M 28 Jan Grasping - Quality metrics HW0 Due
HW1 Out		 Grasp quality measures, Suarez et al, 2006. PDF
Handey: A robot system that recognizes, plans, and manipulates, Lozano-Perez et al, ICRA 1987. PDF
Automatic Grasp Planning Using Shape Primitives, Miller et al, ICRA 2003. PDF
 Notes
Scribing Video Tutorial
W 30 Jan Grasp tables and practice Analysis of Multifingered Hands, Kerr and Roth, IJRR 1986. PDF
Task-Oriented Optimal Grasping by Multifingered Robot Hands, Li and Sastry, 1988. PDF
Knowledge-Based Prehension: Capturing Human Dexterity, Iberall et al., 1988. PDF
Data-driven grasping, Goldfeder and Allen, 2011. PDF 		Notes
M 4 Feb Motion planning and configuration space Spatial Planning: A Configuration Space Approach, Lozano-Perez, 1980. PDF Notes
W 6 Feb Configuration space obstacles Real-Time Configuration Space Transforms for Obstacle Avoidance, Newman and Branicky, 1991. PDF
Computation of Configuration-Space Obstacles Using the Fast Fourier Transform, Kavraki, 1995 PDF 		Notes
M 11 Feb Discrete search algorithms HW1 Due Notes
W 13 Feb Guest lecture: Mike Phillips: Heuristics in Search Search-based Planning for Dual-arm Manipulation with Upright Orientation Constraints, Cohen, Chitta, and Likhachev, 2012. PDF
E-Graphs: Bootstrapping Planning with Experience Graphs, Phillips, Cohen, Chitta, and Likhachev, 2012. PDF
Planning for Manipulation with Adaptive Motion Primitives, Cohen, Subramanian, Chitta, and Likhachev, 2011. PDF
ARA*: Anytime A* with Provable Bounds on Sub-Optimality, Likhachev, Gordon, and Thrun, 2003. PDF 		Notes
M 18 Feb Project Proposal Due
W 20 Feb Joint space planning and Jacobian control A Singularly Valuable Decomposition: The SVD of a Matrix, Kalman 2002. PDF
An Inverse Kinematic Architecture Enforcing an Arbitrary Number of Strict Priority Levels PDF
Obstacle Avoidance for Kinematically Redundant Manipulators in Dynamically Varying Environments PDF
Singularity-Robust Task-Priority Redundancy Resolution for Real-Time Kinematic Control of Robot Manipulators PDF 		Notes
M 25 Feb Probabilistic roadmaps Analysis of Probabilistic Roadmaps for Path Planning, Kavraki, Kolountzakis, and Latombe, 1998. PDF
The Gaussian sampling strategy for probabilistic roadmap planners, Boor Etal 1999. PDF
A Randomized Algorithm for Robot Path Planning Based on Lazy Evaluation, Bohlin Etal 2001. PDF
On the Relationship Between Classical Grid Search and Probabilistic Roadmaps, Lavalle Etal 2010. PDF 		Notes
W 27 Feb Rapidly-exploring random trees HW3 Out RRT-Connect: An Efficient Approach to Single-Query Path Planning, Kuffner and Lavalle, 1999. PDF Notes
M 4 Mar Guest lecture: Mehmet Dogar: Physics-based manipulation HW2 Due Push-Grasping with Dexterous Hands: Mechanics and a Method, Dogar and Srinivasa, 2010. PDF
A Framework for Push-grasping in Clutter, Dogar and Srinivasa, 2011. PDF
Notes
W 6 Mar Guest lecture: Shervin Javdani: Tactile Localization Notes
M 11 Mar No class: Spring break
W 13 Mar No class: Spring break
M 18 Mar Constrained Motion Planning Task Space Regions: A Framework for Pose-Constrained Manipulation Planning, Berenson Etal 2011. PDF Notes
W 20 Mar Planning in Cost Spaces Approaches for Heuristically Biasing RRT Growth, Urmson and Simmons, 2003. PDF
Anytime RRTs, Ferguson and Stentz, 2006. PDF 		Notes
M 25 Mar Navigation planning HW3 Due
HW4 Out		 Notes
W 27 Mar Guest lecture: Carl Wellington: Obstacle avoidance Notes
M 1 Apr Perception for manipulation - sensors Project Midterm Report Due Notes
W 3 Apr World models Notes
M 8 Apr 3D Perception Notes
W 10 Apr Guest lecture: Moslem Kazemi: Compliant control and grasping Notes
M 15 Apr Object recognition and registration Notes
W 17 Apr Guest lecture: Illah Nourbakhsh: HRI Principles HW4 Due Winograd's SHRDLU URL.
Durrell Bishop Marble Answer Machine Video. 		Notes
M 22 Apr HRI Application: Human-Robot Handovers Notes
W 24 Apr Class presentations Notes
M 29 Apr Class presentations Notes
W 1 May Class presentations Notes