Summer Training - Autonomous
Robotics
Synopsis
- Faculty from India and abroad.
- Practical competition based
learning style.
- Free kit for each student (kit
description below).
- Access to discounted parts at
the end of the workshop.
- Cost of entire training program
including taxes.
- Study material on CD.
- Certificate.
Keeping to our commitment of
offering our students the best possible learning experience, IURS has
once again revised its approach and course material to suit the demands
and needs of students better. This year, the stundets will not only get
a theoretical introduction to robotics but also provides them an
expanded opportunity to work with vision based robots, since vision is
the most low-cost way of adding complex intelligence to a robot.
While we will follow the pattern of
involved theoretical teaching and also practical exercises structured
like competitions, the focus of our theoretical sessions will also now
be on demonstrating to students how to use concepts of Artificial
Intelligence, Image Processing and Machine Learning practically.
Gone are the complexities of
grasping mathematical ideas, replaced with step-by-step application
procedures.
IURS has engaged not only its own
team members, educated in India and abroad, as faculty
but also talented researchers who hail from or studied in USA,
Canada, Germany, Hungary and Romania.
Prerequisites: Familiarity
with programming in any language.
Registration
Deadline : 20 Jun 2009
Dates:
1 Jul 2009 - 10
Jul 2009
Timings:
9.00AM to 4.00PM.
Duration:
50 Hrs of supervised training.
Venue
Indian Retail School
New Delhi
Accommodation:
Assitance in securing a place will be provided - please ensure you
inform us that you will need accommodation.
Hands on
Guided Tasks
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Project
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Description
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Build your first robot
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This project will be utilized to familiarize
the summer camp participants with the concepts of designing and
building a small robot that is capable of performing multiple tasks. As
part of the project, students will be introduced to and have an opporty
to work on:
- Programming the ATMega AVR.
- Sensor interfacing & calibration.
- Actuator control.
- Mechanical design & construction of a
small robot.
To complete the goal of introducing students
to robotics the following robotic tasks will be taught and a
mini-competition held between students:
- Line following robot.
- Flashlight follwing robot.
- Obstacle avoidance robot.
The goal of the exercise will be not only to
teach students to make their robots work in controlled simple basic
environments but also the ability to interact with other robotic
devices that add a falvor of dynamism by interfacing with simpler
sensors like Light Sensors and IR Distance Sensors.
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Labyrinth escape
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This next project will deal with the
students being taught to make
their robots solve a maze by locating its exit point, irrespective of
where they were placed in the maze.
Once again a mini-competition will be held
and special certificates to the winners.
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Invisible driver
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Ever wished that a car
could drive itself? Well, we'll walk you through the basic steps of
achieving that in the course.
The robots will be programmed to stay within their lanes and drive to
the target destination. On the way, they will encounter a stop sign at
which the robot will stop and then restart. The task will introduce
students to using computer vision with their robots.
Students will also get to learn how to interface their robots to PCs so
that more heavy duty computation can be carried out there.
Winners of the mini-competition will be
awarded special certificates at this point too!
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The explorer
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This task is inspired by
the space exploring robots and intended to
provide students with an introduction on how to build robots that are
able to handle more complex tasks.
Via this project students will be introduced to higher concepts of
using computer vision
for tasks such as identifying objects, avoiding obstacles and
exploration of a given space. The robots will be given a maximum time
to explore the arena and will be required to avoid obstacles using only
computer vision and also count number of targets.
Special certificates to winners of the
mini-competition at this stage as well.
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Soccer game
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In a first, we will teach
the students how to build simple autonomous soccer playing robots.
With an overhead camera, the students will
make robots that will allow them to locate the ball in the arena, the
oponent and the goal. The task will be as simple as getting the ball to
the goal and avoiding the oponent.
This project will use concepts from of all the tasks taught thus far in
the course. Though it sounds hard to achieve, once we teach it, it will
be easier than you think!
Special certificates to winners of this competition as well.
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Special Demonstrations
The students will not program these
tasks themselves, however, they will be given an explanation and demo
of how these can be implemented.
PID
Control
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Theory behind PID control
will be explained to the students so that they may achieve better
control of the robot. A PID implementation will be demoed and the
students will work on getting experience in how to determine thresholds
to tune the filter's offshoot and rise time.
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Students will not only be
taught path planning algorithms but will also witness how a computer
path planning algorithm implementation works. The discussion and demo
will show them how to build a robot that visits multiple points, before
reaching the target. Being autonomous, changes in waypoints will be
recompute the path in real time.
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Robots that can be built
using techniques taught
- Micromouse / Maze Solver.
- Autonomous all-terrain rover.
- Autonomous underwater robot
(AUV).
- Autonomous sea-surface robot
(ASV).
- Embedded microcontroller based
image processing object tracking robot.
- Computer controlled autonomous
robot.
- Robotic Soccer.
 Kit Contents
ATMega16 Based Development Board
RS-232 Communication Port
LCD Screen
Sharp GP2D120 IR Distance Sensor
Light Sensors
AVR In-System Programmer
Chassis with wheels & castors
DC motors
12V DC Adapter
Study material and manual
Course Contents
- Introduction to
Robotics
- What is a robot?
- History of robotics.
- Tyes of robots.
- Applications of
robotics.
- Current and future
market scenarios.
- Robotic Locomotion
- Introduction to Terrestrial,
Underwater and Aerial locomotion.
- Different types of motors (DC,
Stepper, Servo).
- Gear trains and ratios.
- Introduction
to Microcontroller
- Types of
Microcontrollers.
- Choosing a
Microcontroller for a specific purpose.
- Controller families
(OOPic, Handyboard, Mindstorms).
- Programming the ATMega
AVR.
- Interfacing and
controlling actuators.
- Sensor interfacing,
processing and calibration.
- Communication with
secondary controllers or PCs.
- Autonomous Robots
- Introduction to
Artificial Intelligence concepts.
- PC based robot control.
- PID control.
- Autonomous navigational
systems.
- Dead reckoning.
- Triangulation &
trilateration.
- WiFi, RFID and Visual
SLAM.
- Laser scanner based
mapping.
- RFID localization.
- GPS.
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- Sensor Arrays
- Passive and active sensors.
- Sensor design.
- Interfacing - Analog, Digital, I2C.
- Optimum positioning of sensors.
- Ensuring optimum sensor outputs.
- Advanced sensors
- Compass sensors.
- INS.
- Gyros & accelerometers.
- NorthStar.
- Swiss Ranger.
- Sonar.
- Laser Range Finder (LRF).
- IR Camera.
- Introduction to Advanced
Robotics Topics
- Multi-agent systems.
- Cooperative and swarm robotics.
- Multi-sensor data fusion.
- Simulating robots.
- Computer Vision
- Image capture methods.
- Real-time image
processing.
- Histogram techniques.
- Image normalization.
- Edge detection.
- Blob tracking.
- Image Dilation.
- Target recognition and
tracking.
- Vision based robot
control.
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Cost:
In order to ensure the best
possible venue for students we are providing early registration
discounts. Please refer to the table below in order to get pricing
details.
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Registration
Payment Received By
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Amount
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May 25, 2009
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Rs. 8,500
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Jun 15, 2009
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Rs. 9,500
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Group Discount:
In case you wish to participate in a group of three or more, you will
be provided
with one kit for the entire group with a cost of Rs. 6500 per group
member. (Please call for registration instructions)
Course Description
This summer camp
course aims to provide them with a sound foundation out of theoretical
and practical hands on knowledge and experience in the field of
robotics. The course will provide students insight in to intelligent
systems, remotely operated and autonomous robots and unmanned systems.
Through the course
of this workshop, the student will have an opportunity to work on
plentiful hands on projects, thereby enabling them to construct
intelligent autonomous robots to perform a variety of tasks. All the
modules shown above in the course description and the hands on projects
will be covered during the length of this course. The provided kit will
enable students to continue their experiments, and take the vast sea of
knowledge gained from this course, towards building more complex
machines.
Globally, the
robotics industry and academic community is working on complex machines
that require in-depth knowledge of a variety of fields ranging from
computer science and electronics engineering to mechanical engineering
and aerospace design. This course will equip students with the basic
tenets of all these fields.
The Faculty
The faculty of this
course has been educated, and even are from, the USA, Canada, India,
Germany, Romania, Hungary and other countries. Having won many
international meritorious awards and conducted research in the fields
of intelligent systems and robotics, this diverse group of individuals
is highly qualified to train students in this field. Moreover,
experience in conducting various workshops in USA and India has given
the faculty world-class experience in ensuring the highest levels of
academic excellence throughout the course. Furthermore, students stand
to benefit from this dynamic and highly talented faculty through the
active research programs of IURS and their own home institutions, in
which they are involved, as well. This faculty has won numerous
international awards, published many papers and holds various patents
in their relevant fields.
Click here for more
information on the faculty.
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