Objectives

This is a compulsory course in the fifth semester of the UG programme in Mechanical Engineering. It is intended to give the students an understanding of the basic elements of robotics. With this course, students are expected to develop the knowhow to formulate and computationally solve the typical problems arising in the operation and control of robots.

Course content

Introduction and Overview, Spatial Transformations, Forward and Inverse Position Kinematics, Velocity and Acceleration Kinematics, Robot Dynamics, Actuators and Sensors, Trajectory Planning, Robot Control.

Total number of lectures: 27

Lecturewise breakup

1. Introduction and Overview: 4 Lectures

• Robot structures, Kinds of robots, Robot components, Robotic tasks etc

2. Spatial Transformations: 4 Lectures

• Representation of position and orientation in space, DH parameters and homogeneous transformations, Kinematic representation of open chain serial manipulators 

3. Forward and Inverse Position Kinematics: 4 Lectures

• Forward and Inverse Position Kinematics

4. Velocity and Acceleration Kinematics: 4 Lectures

• Forward and inverse rate kinematics

5. Robot Dynamics: 4 Lectures

• Newton-Euler and Euler-Lagrange formulations, Inverse and forward dynamics

6. Actuators and Sensors: 2 Lectures

• Robotic actuators with special reference to electric motors, Sensing of position, velocity, acceleration, proximity, range, contact and force-torque 

7. Trajectory Planning: 2 Lectures

• Joint space and task space schemes of trajectory planning

8. Robot Control: 4 Lectures

• Basics of linear control, Modelling and control robotic joints, Model-based control

Recommended books

1. Introduction to Robotics by J J Craig

2. A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation by R M Murray, Z Li and S S Sastry

3. Robotics by A Ghosal

4. Robotic Engineering by R D Klafter, T A Chmielewski and M Negin

5. Robotics: Mechanics and control by K R Guruprasad

Experiments list

1. Basics of microcontrollers like Arduino/PIC/Atmega, CPU, peripherals, programming a microcontroller for performing LDE blinking, sensors input/output, motor control, etc.

2. Study of working principle of sensors, sensor interfacing and working with microcontrollers for the following sensors

3. Incremental encoder

4. Potentiometer

5. Touch sensors

6. Force sensors

7. Temperature sensors

8. Study of the basics and working principles of actuators and their control using microcontroller

9. Control of stepper motors

10. DC servo motors control using encoder feedback with PD/PID controllers

11. Study of subsystems in an Industrial robot arm, assignment of DH parameters, developing transformation matrices, base to end-effecter transformations, solving forward kinematics , inverse kinematics, verifying with the robot through experiments

12. Study of mobile robot subsystems, assignment of DH parameters, transformations, path planning and control

13. Study and use of open source software for analysis of a robotic system forward, inverse kinematics. Matlab, RoboAnalyzer, etc

14. Touch sensors

Remark: Due to a major overlap, ME UG students are not to be allowed the PG course ME762 as an elective. And, the present course (ME381A) is not to be given to students other than ME UG

Proposing instructors:  Dr. A. Dutta, Dr. B. Bhattacharya, Dr. K. R. Guruprasad, Dr. K. S. Ramani, Dr. B. Dasgupta