Robots have fascinated people for generations. Today, robots are built for applications as diverse as exploring remote planets, de-mining war zones, cleaning toxic waste, assembling cars, inspecting pipes in industrial plants, and mowing lawns. Robots are also interacting with humans in a variety of ways: robots are museum guides, robot pets entertain, and robots assist surgeons in life threatening operations. The field of robotics studies not only the design of new mechanisms but also the development of algorithms and frameworks to make these mechanisms useful in the physical world, integrating science, engineering, mathematics and more recently biology and sociology, in a unique way. This class will take both a conventional and an unconventional view of robotics in an effort to show the breadth of this field. It will present spectacular recent successes achieved with devices that one would readily recognize as robots, such as automated vehicles and the Mars rovers. But it will also discuss algorithmic techniques for motion planning that have been applied to domains such as computer animation, video games, mixed reality systems, molecular modeling, computational biology and medicine.
Undergraduates and graduate students from computer science as well as electrical engineering, bioengineering, mechanical engineering, and biology/chemistry are encouraged to come and check the class out.
The formal pre-requisites for the class are COMP 212 AND COMP 314. The pre-requisites are waived for graduate students. All students are asked to check the infromation given under Announcements before deciding to take the class.You may follow the class if you do not have the pre-requisites but need to check the information given under announcements and talk with the instructor. If you stay in the class you should plan to cover the algorithmic, programming and mathematical background as indicated in the Announcements on your own or with a small group of your classmates.
Every student attending the class is asked to fill this Index Card
Tuesday & Thursdays 1:00 - 2:20pm
ME 128
Instructor: Professor Lydia Kavraki
Office: Duncan Hall 3106
Office Hours: Thursday 2:30 - 4:00pm and by appointment
Email: "instructor's last name"@cs.rice.edu
Dr. Kavraki's research area is in robotics. Check her website for related projects.
Teaching assistants will be announced soon
Principles of Robot Motion: Theory, Algorithms, and Implementations.
ISBN: 0262033275