Welcome to Intro to Intelligent Robotics. We'll be going interesting places in this class. Prof. Hougen, 14 January 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Correction to what I said this today in class: You should NOT request CS department accounts for this class through the CS department web pages -- rather, I will have all of these generated for you by using existing class rosters. The Syllabus has been changed to reflect this correction. Prof. Hougen, 14 January 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first homework assignment has been added to the class web pages. Prof. Hougen, 16 January 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note that, as announced in class, the room will be changed to Sarkeys Energy Center N202A, starting with our next class meeting (Wednesday, 23 January 2002). Because the homework is due at the START of the class period, you should take some time to locate the room before then. If you had a new account set up for you on the CS machines, you need to change your password as soon as possible. If you do not want your assignments handed back by passing them around the classroom in the stack, let me know and I will hold them back for you to pick up during office hours. Prof. Hougen, 21 January 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- All groups have had their chosen member pick up the robot kits. You will not need to bring these to class on Friday of this week but you will need to bring them with you next Monday. I have added a section on robot kit resources to the class web pages. Each student in the class should download Interactive C (IC) onto his or her personal machine. The group member who will bring his or her laptop to class on Monday will need to be sure to do this before Monday. Further, you should get together as a group before Monday and check out your robot kit to be sure you can establish a connection between the chosen laptop and the HandyBoard. You might also want to try out some of the sensors and motors to see if they work. WARNING: There are two charge modes for the HandyBoards. The ZAP! charge mode can damage the batteries if left on too long. Please read the documentation before using the charger in ZAP! mode. Prof. Hougen, 23 January 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The instructions for Project 0 have been added to the class web pages. Please note that the first "deliverable" is due this Friday (Feb. 1)! Prof. Hougen, 30 January 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homework 2 and a FAQ for Project 0 have been added to the class web pages. Prof. Hougen, 1 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- References to the papers mentioned in class have been added to the class web pages. Prof. Hougen, 5 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A FAQ has been added for homework 2 and a second FAQ has been added for project 0. Prof. Hougen, 6 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was hoping to have the on-line forms ready for you to review the task allocation proposals but, while I have taught myself Perl and CGI programming and have the scripts ready, I'm having a bit of trouble getting them to run on the server. So, I'll need to talk to Jim Summers (our system administrator) tomorrow to find out what the trouble is. I hope to have this rectified before the weekend. Prof. Hougen, 7 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Because I've been too busy to get the web forms up for the reviews of both teammates and other teams, the due dates for those are being pushed back. I'll let you know the exact due dates once I find the time to get the forms up. Also, in response to questions from some students, the reviews of other teams' work will be given to them anonymously. The reviews of your own teammates will be kept private -- they will only be used by me and will not be given to your teammates. Prof. Hougen, 12 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The review form for "Project 0 Task Allocation Proposals" is now up. You will have roughly one week (until midnight Friday, Feb. 22) to complete these reviews. Prof. Hougen, 15 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- As mentioned in class on Friday, if I cannot get an OU email address for you from the OU search engine, then you won't be able to fill out the online review forms until you have provided that email address to me directly. Also, as discussed in class on Friday, we have our first exam coming up this Wednesday, (Feb. 20) during class. It will be an open-book(s), open-notes exam covering the material from chapters 1-6 of the textbook and the lectures up through today. My office hour for today (1-2 pm) will be moved to tomorrow at that same time. Prof. Hougen, 18 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Study aids (old tests) have been added to the class web pages. Servos, RCX boards, and RCX sensors are available for groups to pick up in my office. Prof. Hougen, 19 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A solution key for homework 2 has been added to the class web pages. Prof. Hougen, 19 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The description of project 1 has been added to the class web pages. A schedule of the main events in the class, as discussed last week during class, has been added to the class web pages. Prof. Hougen, 21 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional references on hybrid deliberative/reactive systems have been added to the class website. Prof. Hougen, 25 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional specifications of the target object for project 1 are available on the class web pages. Prof. Hougen, 27 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Announcements (also made in class today): ** No class on Friday (8 March 2002) due to demonstrations. ** Demonstrations will be Thursday and Friday of this week. If you have not scheduled a demo time, you will need to do that TODAY. Currently, groups 2, 5, and 9 have not scheduled any demo times and group 10 has only scheduled one. (In addition, groups 1 and 4 will need to reschedule one of their demos.) Time slots currently available are: Thu. 9:00 - 9:30 9:30 - 10:00 12:00 - 12:30 12:30 - 1:00 1:00 - 1:30 1:30 - 2:00 Fri. 10:00 - 10:30 12:00 - 12:30 12:30 - 1:00 2:30 - 3:00 If replying by email, you will need to specify at least a first and second choice for each demo slot. ** I have more of the large Lego wheels, for groups that asked for them. You may pick them up in my office. ** Your presentations will next week on Wednesday and Friday. You will need to be ready to present on Wednesday, as your group may be selected at random to present on that day. ** We have an faculty candidate in the area of Intelligent Systems coming tomorrow (March 7 2002). She will be giving a talk from 3:00 - 4:00 in CEC 100, followed by a meeting time for grad students from 4:00 - 4:30 in that same room. I encourage you to attend. ** We will have another faculty candidate next week. I'll let you know more about him next week. ** Also next week, there will be a webcast lecture next week that I encourage you to watch. Here are the details of that lecture (taken with modifications from a press release from JPL): How do you teach a robot to avoid obstacles, map its surroundings and go where you want it to go? Robert Hogg of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and colleagues have done just that. Hogg will share their work during a free lecture entitled, "Autonomous Navigation for Urban Robots," on Thursday, March 14 at JPL. Hogg works on "Urbie," an urban robot designed to navigate city terrain without any help from humans. This research on self-navigation, stereoscopic vision and locomotion holds promise for a variety of applications, including search and rescue missions, unmanned reconnaissance and the exploration of distant planets. The lecture will be Webcast starting at 7 p.m. at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/mar02.html . For more information, call (818) 354-0112 or go to http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures.html . JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Prof. Hougen, 6 March 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Someone has walked off with or misplaced the four battery target that was in the lab for group testing purposes. If you have this target object, please return it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! Prof. Hougen, 7 March 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- As mentioned in class, we have another faculty candidate in Intelligent Systems coming to visit and his talk is very relevant to our class, so I encourage you to attend. The talk is TODAY! Here are the details: Veysel Gazi, "Modeling and Stability Analysis of Swarms" 1:30 - 2:30 pm, Thursday, 14 March 2002 AME Conference room (Felgar Hall 214) Prof. Hougen, 14 March 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT REMINDER: As mentioned in class, there will be NO formal class meeting on Monday, 25 March 2002. I will be out of town. Instead, I encourage you to meet with your groups to begin planning for project 2. Project 2 will be similar to project 1 -- the main difference will be that you will be graded on how efficiently your robot finds the target light and returns it to your base and your robot will be provided with information on the environment prior to each trial. In particular, your robot will be told the locations of the obstacles (rocks) and the target object prior to each test run. Your robot should, therefore, plan an efficient (yet navigable) path through environment as needed to reach the target object and return it to base. However, the information you are provided may not be 100% accurate, so your robot plan should not be inflexible. REMINDER #2: As mentioned in class, I will still be gone on Wednesday, 27 March 2002. However, there WILL BE a formal class meeting on that date. Prof. Miller will be teaching the class that day and you WILL be tested over the material that he will cover. Prof. Hougen, 24 March 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The solution to exam 1 has been added to the class web site. Prof. Hougen, 1 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT REMINDER: As mentioned in class a few times now, your second exam will be this Wednesday, April 3. As discussed in the syllabus, exams are open book/open notes and NO electronic devices will be permitted in the testing area. The material covered will be all lecture material presented since the previous exam (including the presentation by Prof. Miller last Wednesday), book chapters 7, 9, and 10, and the three papers on hybrid systems from the "References" web page for this class. (Those papers are: Thrun, "To Know or Not to Know ... "; Simmons et al, "Xavier ... "; and Albus, "A Reference Model Architecture ... ".) Prof. Hougen, 2 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Materials provided by Prof. Miller in reference to his lecture last week have been added to the web pages. Prof. Hougen, 2 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT REMINDER: As mentioned in class, the demonstrations for project 2 will be pushed off until Thursday, April 11 and Friday, April 12. The presentations will, then, be pushed off until Monday, April 15 and Wednesday, April 17. Prof. Hougen, 3 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The description for project 2 has been added to the class web pages. As discussed in class, it will be quite similar to project 1, but with additional information provided to the system and efficiency of route followed included in the grading criteria. To help you find the parts of the assignment that have changed from or been added to the previous assignment, these parts are in italics. Also, the point values for grading have been changed to allow for efficiency to be added. Finally, the due dates have been changed (of course). Prof. Hougen, 4 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some of the dates listed in project 2 were incorrect. In particular, the project body listed the due date for the robot design document, robot (and base station) code, and robot code documentation, as Wednesday, March 13. This should, in all three cases, be Wednesday, April 17, as listed at the top of the assignment. This has been corrected and the revised version of the assignment description has replaced the original version. My apologies for this mistake. Prof. Hougen, 8 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The instructions for the "Technical Paper Reviews" have been put on the class web site. Note that these are for students in 5973-002 only. Also note that the due date has been pushed back a few days. Prof. Hougen, 8 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I misspoke when I said that we would cover the problems with the probabilistic methods on Monday (April 15) in class. Monday and Wednesday (April 15 and 17) will be completely devoted to presentations, as previously announced. We will get back to map making, and move on to localization, on Friday of next week (April 19). Also, remember that there is no class tomorrow (April 12), so that you may demonstrate your robots in the lab. Prof. Hougen, 11 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Due to the limited time left in the semester, I have decided that the last project will be a virtual project. That is, you will create timelines, task allocations, and other materials, just as you have for previous projects, but you won't actually build or program robots to carry out the "mission" given. Instead, you will write up how you *would* approach this mission, given what you know from class, if you had more time and needed to use the same materials as for the other assignments. Each team will write up its own documents. (Note that the documents describing how the robots will coordinate with one another should match up in concepts but be written independently.) Briefly, the mission is to have your robots determine the locations of all of the obstacles within the 8 x 12 foot enclosure. Each team would build one robot. You need to describe how your own robot would map the location of the obstacles it finds and how it would coordinate its actions with the robot from the other team. The team pairings (randomly determined) are: 8 - 3 5 - 2 1 - 9 7 - 4 10 - 6 All documents will be due Wednesday, May 1. In-class presentations will be Wednesday, May 1 and Friday, May 3. Prof. Hougen, 19 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- For those of you rushing to finish up assignments for this class, this is just a reminder of what I said in class last week. I am "forgiving" up to two days worth of late penalties for you for all projects during the semester. This means that you could turn in one assignment up to two days late or up to two assignments one day late each and not be penalized. After that, the normal 20% deduction per day late would apply. If you haven't turned in assignments late so far and are pressed for time, you may want to take advantage of this policy at this time. Prof. Hougen, 29 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The review forms for peer reviews of group members have been added to the class web pages. When filling out these forms, be sure to fill out one for yourself, as well as your group mates. These reviews are due by midnight on Wednesday, May 1. Prof. Hougen, 29 April 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- REMINDER: Peer reviews are due by midnight tonight! Prof. Hougen, 1 May 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- REMINDER: As discussed several times in class, the final exam will be on Tuesday, May 7, from 1:30 until 3:30 pm, in our usual classroom, Sarkeys Energy Center N202A, and will be "cumulatively comprehensive" which is to say: 1. there will not be any questions solely over material covered on the previous two exams -- instead, the questions will cover the new material since the second exam, and 2. as this new material builds on what was covered previously, you will still need to know the previously covered material. In the textbook, the new material is in chapters 8 and 11. Prof. Hougen, 6 May 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- REMINDER: As announced in class, I need your robot kits back by noon on Thursday of this week. If you will not be able to return them to me by then, you will need to contact me to make alternate arrangements. I need these back before giving you a grade in this class. I will hold my normal office hours today (1-2 pm) and again on Wednesday (2-3 pm). I will also be in my office most other times this week, at least through Thursday. Prof. Hougen, 6 May 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- For students who would like to pick up class materials of theirs that I have in my possession, or who would like to verify their scores in my grade file, I will be available Thursday, May 16 for most of the day in my office. I will also be available most days this summer. You may stop by and hope that I am available or call or email to set up an appointment. If you would like to have your scores emailed to you, you may send me an email from an account that I can verify and reply to (such as your ou.edu account). Prof. Hougen, 13 May 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- My apologies for the change of schedule but I will not be available until Monday, May 20, at the soonest. Prof. Hougen, 15 May 2002