The world needs people who understand how to get robots moving. Making robots move requires both mathematical knowledge and programming skills. We begin with the problem of describing where things are in the world. Starting simply, we consider objects in a two-dimensional plane, exploring the concepts of position, pose, rotation, and translation. Robot movement relies on the principles of kinematics – the motion of a body or bodies. You’ll program forward kinematics equations in MATLAB and learn approaches to inverse kinematics.
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We examine types of motion in 2D, and dive into some principles of joint control theory. We finish with a taste of 3D robotics!
This course is part of the Introducing Robotics program, which will enable you to gain the robotics skills that are needed today and in the future.
What topics will you cover?
- Geometry and vectors for robotics
- Position, pose, orientation, rotation and translation: describing where things are in the world.
- Types of robots: forms and functions
- Forward and inverse kinematics
- Types of motion in 2D
- Joint control
- A taste of 3D robotics
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...
- Explain what robots are and what they can do.
- Describe mathematically the position and orientation of objects and how they move.
- Describe mathematically the relationship between robot joint coordinates and robot tool pose.
