Class Meeting: Tuesday and Thursday 3:55-5:10pm, HRBB 113
Instructor: Nancy Amato
office: 414B HRBB
office hours: 3-4pm Wednesdays, 1-1:50pm Fridays, or by appointment
office phone: 862-2275
email: amato@cs.tamu.edu
url: http://www.cs.tamu.edu/people/amato
home phone: 693-1855 (ok to call 9am-midnight)
Course Homepage: http://www.cs.tamu.edu/people/amato/Courses/643
Prerequisite:
Familiarity with analysis of algorithms (e.g., CPSC 311 or CPSC 629)
will be assumed.
Background in Math (Geometry, Topology, Algebra) is desirable,
but is not required.
Note: CPCS 452 is NOT a prerequisite for this course (as is
listed in the catalog).
However, some exposure to Robotics (e.g., kinematics) will help.
If you are not sure of your background, check with the instructor.
Reading Material:
Textbook:
J.C. Latombe, Robot Motion Planning,
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
Handouts:
Assignments and other handouts will be available on the course
homepage.
Additional reading material will be made available at the copy
center on the first floor of HRBB.
If there is interest, I will also make an effort to put my lecture
notes in the copy center - however, no promises and beware, they
will contain errors.
Course Description: (Different from catalog description.)
In this course we will study the general motion planning problem:
computing a sequence of motions that transforms
a given (initial) arrangement of physical objects to
another (goal) arrangement of those objects.
Many motion planning methods were developed in the realm of
robotics research.
For example, a typical problem might be to find a sequence of
motions (called a path) to move a robot from one position to
another without colliding with any objects in its workspace.
However, the general motion planning problem we will study
arises in many other application domains as well.
For example, assembly planning
(e.g., finding a valid order for adding the parts when building
an engine),
mechanical CAD studies
(e.g., can you remove a certain part from an engine without taking
the engine apart),
virtual reality
(e.g., finding appropriate fly-through paths in VR environments),
and medicine
(e.g., performing insertability studies for artificial hip implants).
Course Organization :
The first part of the course will concentrate on basic
motion planning topics including:
The second part of the course will cover advanced topics and various application domains:
Assignments: There will be several (4-6) homework assignments (paper and pencil) of exercises covering the material presented in class. There will also be some assignments which will involve things such as preparing reports on researchers that have made major contributions to motion planning or reading and reviewing papers drawn from the technical literature.
Project: The goal of the project is to study in depth some issue related to motion planning. Projects may range from a theoretical investigation of an open problem (solution not required for a good grade...), to a survey paper, to an experimental implementation/study. Project topics will be selected by the student (in consultation with the instructor) by the end of the first part of the course. In certain cases, projects may be done with partners (of course, more will be expected than for individual projects). If time allows, students will present their projects to the class during the last few lectures of the semester.
Grading: Course grades will be determined as follows:
Computer use and accounts: You will need to be familiar with and have access to a web browser since many handouts for the course will be made available only on the web. In addition, email will be widely used for announcements regarding the course -- you must read your email regularly.
All students registered for this course are entitled to have accounts on the UNIX machines in the CS department. If you do not already have a CS UNIX account you can sign up for one on the second floor in HRBB.