Module description
Students will be introduced to the main concepts and software components for autonomous robot programming. They will learn how areas of Artificial Intelligence (such as Planning and Computer Vision)contribute to autonomous robots and what technical and scientific challenges are raised by the interactio nwith the real world. The students will explore how to use a robot-oriented middleware, such as the Robot Operating System, to create a modular architecture. They will learn how to build on existing software components to develop a robotic system with several capabilities, representative of modern autonomous robots, such as, navigation, state estimation, object and person recognition, dialogue, and manipulation.By the end of the module, the students will be able to program mobile robots to execute a range of complex tasks inspired by home and industrial scenarios, and creatively construct new tasks and the software through which the robot executes them.
Assessment details
AssessmentCoursework 1 10% Coursework 2 90%
Educational aims & objectives
Students will be introduced to the main concepts and software components for autonomous robot programming. They will learn how areas of Artificial Intelligence (such as Planning and Computer Vision)contribute to autonomous robots and what technical and scientific challenges are raised by the interaction with the real world. The students will explore how to use a robot-oriented middleware, such as the Robot Operating System, to create a modular architecture. They will learn how to build on existing software components to develop a robotic system with several capabilities, representative of modern autonomous robots, such as, navigation, state estimation, object and person recognition, dialogue, and manipulation.By the end of the module, the students will be able to program mobile robots to execute a range of complex tasks inspired by home and industrial scenarios, and creatively construct new tasks and the software through which the robot executes them.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this module, students will be able to
• ITR1: select and describe the main methods used in modern autonomous robots to implement different capabilities.
• ITR2: develop software components for a robotic middleware, such as the Robot Operating System.
• ITR3: create software systems, combining different areas of robotics and artificial intelligence,enabling robots to execute tasks of interest.
• ITR4. evaluate the effectiveness of software for autonomous robots.
• ITR 5. Identify ways in which autonomous robots can benefit society.
Syllabus Topics will be selected from:
Fundamental concepts of software systems for robotics; the Robot Operating System (ROS); in ROS:autonomous robot navigation; mapping; coordinate transformation and kinematics; object recognition;speech; behaviour representation and planning.