CPS 196/296 - Duke University

CPS 196/296: Robotics
Spring 2007

Course Info

Meeting Times: Tuesday & Thursday, 4:25 - 5:40, LSRC D106
Instructor: Ron Parr - parr at cs dot duke dot edu, D209 LSRC, 660-6537
Office Hours: TBD
TA: None
Optional Text: Probabilistic Robotics, Sebastian Thrun, Wolfram Burgard, and Dieter Fox, MIT Press.
Final Exam: None
Midterm: None

Tentative List of Assignments

Cameras/Sensors/Optics:
- Infer the color filter on a sensor from data
- Infer the focal length of a lens from data
- Estimate sensor dark current levels
- Derive and implement colorspace conversion routines
- Implement color interpolation
Linear Algebra/Statistics
- Warm up/refresher exercises
Tracking:
- Implement Kalman Filter, particle filter
- Implement robot localization (with realistic noise and motion models)
Mapping:
- Implement Kalman Filter SLAM
Presentation: Students will prepare an in-class presentation on a paper selected from a list of recent robot mapping or localization papers.

Note: I would like to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to implement his or her algorithm on a real robot. Depending upon the condition of our robots and the size of the class, I am considering several options to make this happen. These would include updating our existing research robots so at least 2 can be used for class projects. Another option would be to use some of the new iRobot Create systems with student-provided laptops. We will work out these details in the first week of class.