RBE 550 – Motion Planning

Instructor:

Zhi Jane Li

Office: 85 Prescott 223C

Office Hours: Monday, Thursday 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Email: zli11 [at] wpi.edu

Time & Location: Wed, Fri 12:00pm - 1:15pm, [at] OH126

Course Website:

Piazza Discussion Website: https://piazza.com/wpi/spring2017/rbe550/home

This course is designed based on Dr. Dmitry Berenson’s RBE 550 - Motion Planning.

Overview:

This course focuses on the theory and practice of robot motion planning, which can be applied to many kinds of robots as well as animated characters and even molecules. It will cover the major topics of motion planning including (but not limited to) planning for manipulation with robot arms and hands, mobile robot path planning with non-holonomic constraints, multi-robot path planning, high-dimensional sampling-based planning, and planning on constraint manifolds. Students will implement motion planning algorithms in open-source frameworks, read recent literature in the field, and complete a project that draws on the course material.

Prerequisites:

Undergraduate Linear Algebra, experience with 3D geometry, and significant programming experience.

Textbook:

• Choset, H., Lynch, K. M., Hutchinson, S., Kantor, G., Burgard, W., Kavraki, L. E., & Thrun, S. Principles of robot motion: theory,algorithms, and implementations. MIT press. (2005).

Lectures:

1. Introduction
2. Planning for point robots
3. Cspace
4. Discrete Planning
5. Transformation
6. Collision Detection
7. Sampling-based Planning 01
8. Sampling-based Planning 02
9. Non-holonomic Planning
10. Grasping
11. Planning for arms 01
12. Planning for arms 02
13. Putting it all together

Homework:

1. Homework 1
2. Homework 2
3. Homework 3

Resources:

• Linear Algebra Review and Reference by Zico Kolter (updated by Chuong Do)
• Probability Review
• How to read a paper by Dmitry Berenson
• How to Write a Conference Paper by Dmitry Berenson
• Research Paper Review Guidelines by Dmitry Berenson
• Presentation Guidelines by Dmitry Berenson
• Presentation Grading Sheet by Dmitry Berenson
• Project Proposal Guidelines by Dmitry Berenson
• Project Progress Report Guidelines by Dmitry Berenson

The instructor reserves the right to modify the course outline and policies mentioned in this syllabus at any time during the term.