COMS 4733: Computational Aspects of Robotics
Overview:
This course is an overview of the field of robotics. The intent of this course is to give students an in-depth understanding of how robots work, and the application and use of computation to typical robotic problems. Students will also be exposed to current research directions in robotics. A key component of the class is programming mobile robots and manipulators to implement robotic perception and planning algorithms.
Lecture Time: Fri 10:10 - 12:40
Lecture Location: 312 MATHEMATICS
Instructor: Shuran Song
TAs:
Neil Nie (yn2376)
Zeyi Liu (zl2753)
Arpit Bahety (ab5232)
Sean Chen (yc3937)
Yulong Li (yl4095),
Chen Chi (cc4617)
Office Hours:
Shuran: Mon 5:00 - 6:00 pm
TAs: 3-5 PM on Thursdays and 10-12PM on Tuesday
Topics include:
Coordinate frames and representations.
Specification of position and orientation
Simulation environments
Perception in robotics: 2D and 3D vision
Learning-based perception
Planning strategies in robotics.
Manipulator forward and inverse kinematics
Learning-based planning: imitation learning, reinforcement learning, etc
Advanced topics and case study
Pre-requisites:
Data Structures
Knowledge of at least one of the following: C, C++,Python or Java. We will be using Python extensively in this course.
Knowledge of elementary linear algebra
Grading:
Programming assignments: 25%,25%25%+(5% bunus),25%
Grade cutoff:
A+: 98 +, A: 92-98, A-: 87-91
B+: 83-86, B: 80-82, B-: 78-80
C: 70-77, D: 60-69, F: Below 60
Turn in Homework before deadline. No exceptions.
Time of deadline Thursday 5 pm
One minute late is late. The late penalty applied is by the number of hours late, rounded up:
Every hour late = lose 2 points
1 days (24h) late = lose 48 points
More than 2 days (48h) late = lose all points
More than 2 days earlier = +4 points
If you have serious reasons, ask your advising dean to contact us.
Policies and Procedures Regarding Academic Honesty
Please read: https://www.cs.columbia.edu/education/honesty/
All projects should be completed individually.
For every project, we might ask you to explain your submission with TA. Students who fail to show satisfactory understanding for their own implementation might get points deducted from their homework.
We will use MOSS for detecting software similarity http://theory.stanford.edu/~aiken/moss/
Text Book
We do not require a textbook. However, you may find the following books are useful resources:
Robotics vision and Control This is online and free to Columbia students using a Columbia IP address.
Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots, Second Edition Roland Siegwart, Illah R. Nourbakhsh and Davide Scaramuzza, MIT Press 2011.
Online version with Columbia ID, also available at online retailers.
Springer Handbook of Robotics. This is also online and free to Columbia students using a Columbia IP address.