Modern Robotics, Course 2: Robot Kinematics

This Specialization provides a rigorous treatment of spatial motion and the dynamics of rigid bodies, employing representations from modern screw theory and the product of exponentials formula. Students with a freshman-level engineering background will quickly learn to apply these tools to analysis, planning, and control of robot motion. Students' understanding of the mathematics of robotics will be solidified by writing robotics software. Students will test their software on a free state-of-the-art cross-platform robot simulator, allowing each student to have an authentic robot programming ex

( 21 Reviews )

Created by: Kevin Lynch

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Overall Score : 96 / 100

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Course Description

Do you want to know how robots work? Are you interested in robotics as a career? Are you willing to invest the effort to learn fundamental mathematical modeling techniques that are used in all subfields of robotics?If so, then the "Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control" specialization may be for you. This specialization, consisting of six short courses, is serious preparation for serious students who hope to work in the field of robotics or to undertake advanced study. It is not a sampler.In Course 2 of the specialization, Robot Kinematics, you will learn to solve the forward kinematics (calculating the configuration of the "hand" of the robot based on the joint values) using the product-of-exponentials formula. Your efforts in Course 1 pay off handsomely, as forward kinematics is a breeze with the tools you've learned. This is followed by velocity kinematics and statics relating joint velocities and forces/torques to end-effector twists and wrenches, inverse kinematics (calculating joint values that achieve a desired "hand" configuration), and kinematics of robots with closed chains.This course follows the textbook "Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control" (Lynch and Park, Cambridge University Press 2017). You can purchase the book or use the free preprint pdf. You will build on a library of robotics software in the language of your choice (among Python, Mathematica, and MATLAB) and use the free cross-platform robot simulator V-REP, which allows you to work with state-of-the-art robots in the comfort of your own home and with zero financial investment.

Time: 17h

Instructor Details

Kevin Lynch

4.8 Rating
21 Reviews

Kevin Lynch is Professor and Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Northwestern University. He is a member of the Neuroscience and Robotics Lab (nxr.northwestern.edu) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (nico.northwestern.edu). His research focuses on dynamics, motion planning, and control for robot manipulation and locomotion; self-organizing multi-agent systems; and functional electrical stimulation for restoration of human function. Dr. Lynch is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation and incoming Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics. He is co-author of the textbooks "Principles of Robot Motion" (MIT Press, 2005), "Embedded Computing and Mechatronics" (Elsevier, 2015, https://nu32.org), and "Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control" (Cambridge University Press, 2017, https://modernrobotics.org). He is an IEEE fellow and the recipient of Northwestern's Professorship of Teaching Excellence and the Northwestern Teacher of the Year award in engineering. He earned a BSE in electrical engineering from Princeton University and a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Reviews

4.8

21 total reviews

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By Rudraksh B on 3-Feb-19

As a graduate student who has taken multiple Robotics courses in university, I can say that it is a very instructive course. However, it may seem tedious for those who are not familiar with Robotics. One last thing, I preferred Denavit Hartenberg method until this course. Now I can see that PoE is much more efficient than DH.

By Abdulkareem A on 3-Jan-19

Loved the course and the difficulty level of it. The assignment in particular will be good challenge for MATLAB beginners like me as you'll need to figure out how to do it. But its easy enough and if you have some programming experience, you can do it easily. What I love about this course is that it doesn't spoon feed you. You need to work hard to get all the benefits from the course.

By Troy E on 25-Mar-19

I just wanna say thank for the smooth and clear explanation THANKs THANKs THANKs <3

By Jean D C R on 10-Dec-18

More difficult that most Coursera offerings. Lots and lots of glorious math!I really enjoyed it.

By Ritwik S on 1-Apr-19

Basic skills anyone with interest in robotics should have

By Arashdeep P on 19-Feb-19

Very interesting course. It not only covers inverse kinematics but also manipulability and some statics coming from the Jacobian. The Jacobian singularities and its implications are very clear and well explained.Small drawback is that it's better not to use the library that comes with the course as otherwise you won't learn so much. I implemented my own and learned a lot by implementing it.Another small drawback is that there is no mention to Conformal Geometric Algebra as something to look at to implemente analytical solutions to inverse kinematics. Neither, iterative FABRIK as alternative to pseudo-Jacobian is mentioned. A mention and a reference would be nice for the learner as presudoinverse jacobian is very limited.The other drawback, which is major, is that assignments are peer-graded instead of unit tested. It's not ideal at all. Hopefully they will be unit-tested at some point in time so that it's more fair and efficient.

By Mariia K on 12-Jul-18

As I am looking forward to be expertise in the field of Modern Robotics (Robotic Manipulators), this course sets the perfect platform for the same. After going through this course, I have learned the very crucial part - Robot Kinematics. The way video lectures are made are always engulfing. But, in this course, the peer graded assignment posed some real challenge and gave real time experience of how robotic manipulators/mobile robots perform.

By Priyanka P M on 12-Jun-18

The course is really interesting and the instruction is really good. Thanks for professor Lynch.One advice: since the closed chain is important, I wish that these knowledge and examples could be given more, thanks!

By Krishna S on 15-Aug-18

Very nice and compact explanation. Love the teaching style! You have to read the book to really grasp the material, if you're planning on taking this course, you have to take it seriously. It's pretty though.

By Petrov A Y on 18-Nov-18

It is very good

By DECOLIUS A K on 26-Nov-18

Excellent course.It helped me to improve my programming at much higher level and I got good knowledge.Initially before taking this course I was worried whether I would complete this course but thanks to Kevin sir for such a great teaching

By Kulminsky A on 1-Oct-18

It is a great start for learning kinematics of open chain robots, i wish i could learn ore about the closed chain robots too, but they have given the boost, now its your turn to learn more and more

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