EE474/EM401 Robotics & Control

Lecture 1: Introduction

Dr Gordon Dobie, EEE

About Me
• Studied EME at Strathclyde
• Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering
• Robotics, instrumentation and imaging
• https://uk.linkedin.com/in/gordon-dobie-98a06213
• 4 researchers, 9 PhD students and 1 masters group project, 5
Honours projects.
• Teach EE312 Microcontrollers and EE474 Mobile Robotics
Course information:

available in: http://myplace.strath.ac.uk

Reference guides and other useful material are

also there
Timetable
Assessment

• 10 % for two quizzes

• 10 % for lab assignment

• 2.5 questions in the final exam (exam

worth 60%).
Semester 2 Overview
• Industrial Case Study (Robotics for NDT)

• Introduction
• Locomotion (Mechanical Engineering)
• Motors (Electrical Engineering)
• An Introduction to Control (Engineering)
• Mobile Robot Kinematics (Maths / Mechanical
Engineering)
• Robotic Vision (Computer Science)
• Bayesian Filtering (Engineering)
• Localisation (Engineering)
• Systems Engineering (Engineering)
Suggested Book 1
• Introduction to Autonomous
Mobile Robots
• by Roland Siegwart , Illah R.
Nourbakhsh, Davide Scaramuzza
• ISBN-10: 0262015358
• ISBN-13: 978-0262015356
• Locomotion/Kinematics

• Some of our slides area adapted

from the ‘Slides that go with the
book’
Suggested Book 2
• Probabilistic Robotics
• By: Sebastian Thrun, Wolfram
Burgard, Dieter Fox
• ISBN-10: 0262201623
• ISBN-13: 978-0262201629

• Bayesian Filtering, Robot

Localisation
Suggested Book 3

• Where am I? Sensors and

Methods for Mobile Robot
Positioning
• By: Borenstein, H.R. Everett, L
Feng
• Available online as a pdf.

• Robot odometry
Overview of today’s lecture
• Introduce the basic problems of mobile
robotics
– the basic questions
– examples and it’s challenges

• Introduce some basic terminology

– Environment representation and modeling

• Introduce the key challenges of mobile robot

navigation
– Localisation and map-building
Main Challenges of Mobile Robotics
• The three key questions in Mobile Robotics
– Where am I ?
– Where am I going ?
– How do I get there ?

• To answer these questions the robot has to

– have a model of the environment (given or
autonomously built)
– perceive and analyze the environment
– find its position within the environment
– plan and execute the movement

© Android Central
Vector

Computation / Sensors
Communication Camera,
Qualcomm Microphone
Snapdragon 200 array, Laser
WiFi and scanner, IMU,
Bluetooth edge sensors

Misc
Locomotion
300 parts
Two tracks driven
Colour display
by DC motors. Anki Vector Robot (www.anki.com)
and speaker for
UI
Built by three Carnegie Mellon
Robotics Institute graduates
Vector

https://www.kinvert.com/whats-inside-anki-vector-hardware/
Silverwing Scorpion 2

Computation / Sensors
Communication Ultrasonic
AM3358BZCZ100 thickness probe
1GHz ARM 2 positional
Cortex-A8 encoders
+ Microcontroller IMU

Misc
Locomotion
Magnetic Wheels
4 driven wheels
DC motors Silverwing NDT
(https://www.silverwingndt.com/)

Company works with Strathclyde

Silverwing Scorpion 2

Images from www.silverwing.net

Beam+

Sensors
Locomotion
Encoders
2 drive wheels
Camera and mic
and 2 passive
(for
casters
teleconferencing)

https://suitabletech.com/

(Spun out of Willow Garage)

KMR QUANTEC

Omni-wheels
enabling sideways
movement. It
combines fixed arm
robots with mobile
robots.

https://www.kuka.com/en-gb/products/mobility/mobile-robots/kmr-quantec
Forester Robot

Pulstech developed the

first ‘industrial like’
walking robot. It is
designed moving wood
out of the forest. The leg
coordination is
automated, but
navigation is still done
by the human operator
on the robot.
http://www.plustech.fi/
Tilt-Hex, UAV

Drones are
becoming a popular
mobile robot
platform, but are
currently limited by
battery life and
basic surface
interaction.

http://homepages.laas.fr/afranchi/robotics/?q=node/414
Flyability's Elios UAV

Flyability Elios
drone uses a role
cage so it can
‘bounce’ off external
surfaces

https://www.flyability.com/
Humanoid Robots (Sony)
General Control Scheme for Mobile
Robot Systems
Knowledge, Mission
Data Base Commands

Localisation Cognition
"Position"
Map Building Path Planning
Global Map

Environment Model Path

Local Map

Information Path
Extraction Execution

Motion Control
Perception

Raw data Actuator Commands

Sensing Acting

Real World
Environment
AMR: Fig 1.15
Relative vs Absolute Sensors

• Relative sensors measure change in t

position, i.e. xt  xt  1  mt  e
• Error grows with each measurement 0

• Absolute sensors measure absolute

position, i.e.
xt  mt  et
• Error is absolute
Relative vs Absolute
Sensors
• Incremental • Absolute

HTC Vive Lighthouse

Step counters GPS systems

Wheel encoders

Modified environment sensors

Integrated vs External Sensors

• Integrated sensors live on the robot and

include
– Encoders
– Inertial measurement sensors (IMUs) /
Magnetic, Angular Rate, and Gravity sensors
(MARGs)
– Cameras
– Lidar
Integrated vs External Sensors

• External sensors are not part of the robot

itself. Examples include:
– GPS
– HTC Vice Lighthouse System
Leica laser tracker and Kuka robot
– Laser Trackers
Vicon motion capture system
 Sensor Choice

• Relative sensors drift

over time.
Relative • External sensors
typically add cost
and limit usefulness
• Integrated, absolute
Absolute sensors are typically
the most attractive

External Integrated
Integrated Absolute Sensors
– Do they exist?
• Not really…
• However, if the robot can accurately sense
a somewhat static environment it can
estimate absolute position.
• I.e. it can measure the heading to a
recognisable landmark
Example Floor Tracking
• Visual Odometry and Image Mosaicing for NDE. Gordon
Dobie, Rahul Summan, Charles MacLeod, S. Gareth
Pierce
Example: IMU on a Pipe
• Mobile Robot Positioning Using Accelerometers for Pipe
Inspection. Alexander McGregor 1, a), Gordon Dobie1, Neil
Pearson 2, Charles Macleod 1, Anthony Gachagan1
Laser Scan Matching

Lidar Scan-Matching for

Video from CUE Lab.
Mobile Robot
Dayi Zhang
Localization. Xia Yuan,
Chun-Xia Zhao and Zhen-
Min Tang
Data Fusion

• If we have more than one sensor we can fuse

measurements to better estimate positon.
• We will use a probabilistic framework
Bayesian Filtering to estimate location.
• Using traditional sensors – Extended
Kalman Filter (this classes exercise)
• Using environmental information –
Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping
What You Should Have Learnt!

• An introduction to mobile robotics

• Example robots
• A robot system diagram
• Approaches to sensing and localisation