Basic Robotic Behaviors and Odometry

University of Colorado Boulder via Coursera

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/basic-robotic-behaviors-and-odometry

Introduction

Model mechanisms, sensors and actuators in a physics-based online simulator.

Understand basic reactive and discrete controllers.

Perform forward kinematics computations for simple (non-)Holonomic mechanisms.

Syllabus

Getting Started

This week introduces the course and gives you an opportunity to introduce yourself. You will prepare for the rest of the course by learning about the main operation tool we will use throughout, the realistic robotics simulator "Webots". You will become familiar with Webots, its hosting website, and will begin to develop your foundation in navigating the simulator.

Sensors and Actuators

This week introduces the devices that allow robots to move and effectuate changes in their environment ("actuators"), as well as perceive their world ("sensors").

Reactive Behaviors and State Machines

In this week, you will experiment with basic reactive robotic behaviors and understand the challenges of task execution.

Coordinate Systems, Degrees of Freedom and Forward Kinematics

This week you will learn how to formally describe the global pose of a robot and how different actuators can affect this pose.

Localization with Odometry and Loop Closure

In this week, you will learn how to keep track of actuation commands and hence estimate the pose of your robot. You will use information from the environment to improve pose estimation and understand the concept of "holonomy".