Expensive robots used in industry, defense, medicine, and space exploration are often expected to perform tasks that demand high accuracy and optimality of manipulation that may be learned from demonstrations by humans. Thanks to King's College London's central role in the DARWIN research consortium currently developing a cognitive architecture for a humanoid robot to learn advanced manipulation skills, this course will offer you first-hand experience in testing object-oriented C++ codes used in real robots with a visual iCub robot simulator.
This exceptional opportunity for professionals, students and hobbyists offers the chance to master good planning, designing, and programming skills to make modern robots perform accurate and reliable tasks in real service environments.Gaining useful insight into how teams develop object-oriented codes in large robotic projects, how ideas are tested and implemented, and how you can enjoy working in a team on the most exciting robotic projects, you will work in teams to discuss theoretical principles and practical implementation of humanoid robotic reaching and manipulation.
You'll also have the opportunity to participate in open brainstorming group discussions, to develop presentation skills, and to become self-critical as a future robotics engineer. This course will will focus on:
- Mathematical formulation and coding (in Matlab/C++) of robot hand kinematics that relate joint angles to the position of the hand and fingers.
- Planning and implementation of complex actions using simple action primitives.
- Reward-based learning of action selection.
- Learning action object manipulation primitives based on demonstrations so that learnt primitives can be reused to manipulate new objects.
- A team project to make the robot able to use a tool to manipulate an object.
Period
01-07-2013 - 19-07-2013 (3 weeks)
Target group
This course would be of interest to students looking to learn more about robotics and control and willing to improve their coding skills. Professionals and hobbyists that want to discover more about how a robot is programmed and operated will also find this course beneficial.
Course aim
In this course, we plan to expose you to object-oriented C++ programming to implement simple robot control algorithms, planning and designing simple robotic algorithms, and to test them in our simulators to visualise how the robots might behave in the experiment. You will obtain a good exposure to how teams develop object-oriented codes in large robotic projects, how ideas are tested and implemented, and how you can enjoy working in a team to do exciting robotic projects.
Credits
7.5 ECTS credits
Many of our students get credit for the summer courses taken at Kings. You should approach your home university before applying to find out whether they accept our courses for credit. We would recommend a three-week course to be equivalent 4 US credits or 7.5 ECTS, for instance.
Course fee
GBP 1350: tuition fee only
Course leader
Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara graduated with a first class honours degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa in 1996. He secured a MSc degree in Electrical Engineering in 1998 and a PhD degree in Systems Control and Robotics from Saga
King's College London
Address: Strand, London
Postal code: WC2R 2LS
City: London
Country: United Kingdom
Website: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/summerschool
E-mail: summerschool@kcl.ac.uk
Phone: +44 20 7848 1533
Robot Shaping
label
Diverse
calendar_month
2013-02-18, 00:00
autorenew
2025-09-29, 17:01
history_edu
Ioana Dinescu
