Course syllabus

Note: The Canvas Discussion pages will be used extensively to give guidance and hints for the home assignments and the project work, as well as for Peer-assisted learning (PAL). Please log in to Canvas several times per week to keep you updated on the discussions, and try your best to take part!

Course-PM

TME290 / FIM764 Autonomous robots - lp4 (7.5 hp)

The course is offered by the department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences.

Contact details

Please contact the course staff for any further questions about the teaching or course subjects. If a meeting is required, please make contact by email to request an appointment (during office hours).

Examiner and lecturer

Ola Benderius, 031-772 2086, ola.benderius@chalmers.se

Course assistants

Krister Blanch, krister.blanch@chalmers.se

Ali Mohammadi, ali.mohammadi@chalmers.se

Rahul Rajendra Pai, rahul.pai@chalmers.se

Study administrator

Per Thorén, thoren@chalmers.se

Course purpose

The course aims at giving the students an understanding of design principles for autonomous systems, both robots and software agents, and also gives students the opportunity to apply their knowledge in practice through the construction of an industry-relevant autonomous robot.

Schedule

TimeEdit

Course literature

Lecture notes, source code templates, and web links. The material will be made available via the course web page.

Course design

The course consist of lectures, optional home assignments, and a project. In the lectures the main theories of autonomous robots are covered, which will provide the students with a broad overview of the subject area. Furthermore, the students are expected to apply the knowledge from the lectures in the project and in the optional home assignments.

The project part of the course consist of lab sessions with supervision by teachers, targeting a final robot demonstration as a goal, including several sub-goals. The students are expected to carry out some project work outside class hours. The projects should be carried out in teams of 3–4 students per group.

Moreover, there are optional home assignments that can be carried out individually or in group. The purpose of the assignments is to prepare for the written exam, and to get graded feedback.

Both the project and the written exam contribute to the student’s final grade on the course. Please read further details regarding assessment and grading below.

Lab sessions will partly take place in the Robotics lab located in the M-building. The lab is located next to the Chalmers wind tunnel. Time slots for the lab are bookable online.

Learning objectives and syllabus

• Describe properties of common types of robotic hardware, including sensors, actuators, and computational nodes
• Apply modern software development and deployment strategies connected with autonomous robots
• Set up and use equations of motion of wheeled autonomous robots
• Apply basic sensor fusion
• Set up and use computer simulations of autonomous robots
• Apply global and local navigation of autonomous robots
• Apply the basics of behavior-based robotics
• Apply methods for decision making in autonomous robots
• Discuss the potential role of autonomous robots in society, including social, ethical, and legal aspects
• Discuss technical challenges with autonomous robots in society

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen.

Study plan

Examination form

The examination consists of a written exam and a graded project.

See the following subsections for details regarding assessment and grading. Refer also to the below section regarding plagiarism.

Grades

The grades that are given in this course are the following: 5, 4, 3, U (not passed).

Written exam

The written exam will be graded U, 3, 4, or 5. A minimum grade of 3 is required in order to pass the course. There are optional home assignments available at Canvas that work as suitable preparation for the written exam. Some of the exam questions will be heavily inspired by the home assignments. Home assignments can be handed in individually or in group and will be graded (but not count towards the final course grade).

Project assessment

The project work grade depends on the total accomplishment of the project, a brief final report/summary, and an oral examination. For grade 3, the student needs to understand all aspects of the submitted solution. For grade 4, the student in addition needs to give further understanding of algorithms and concepts of the submitted solution. For grade 5, the student in addition needs to understand the software engineering process (DevOps) relevant for the project, as well as show successful implementation in C++ (including proof of CI/CD activity).

Furthermore, the project teams must demonstrate their progress during the course by the accomplishment of sub-goals, by showing specific project milestones in lab sessions. In the end of the course, a mandatory event is arranged where groups get the opportunity to demonstrate their results.

The students’ performance on the project will be evaluated and graded both on the group level and on the individual level in addition to the project assessment. It's up to each group member to individually plan and carry out the work to reach a specific goal, and if the goal differs from the rest of the group the examiner should be consulted for an individual project plan.

Note: Students of the same project group might end up with different project grades, both depending on individual goals and the assessment of the work.

Final course grade

The student’s final course grade will be determined according to the following principles: The grade of the written exam (3, 4, or 5), plus the grade on the project work (3, 4, or 5), divided by two. The resulting value, rounded to the nearest integer value, is the final individual grade of the course.

In ambiguous cases, such as e.g. when the summation equals 4.5, the final grade will be rounded upwards if the project grade is higher than the grade on the written exam, and downwards otherwise. An effect of this is that a final grade of 5 in the course, can only be achieved if reaching grade 5 on the project.

Regarding plagiarism

Briefly, plagiarism occurs when someone present ideas, concepts, texts, or other structures from someone else, as their own. I.e. without appropriately acknowledging the original source. See further in the document about Academic integrity and honesty at Chalmers (link).

The reports (and other submitted materials such as e.g. programming code) should be original work in order to be passed.

It is allowed to use tools such as chat bots to come up with ideas, but if this is done, any dialogue with the bot needs to be clearly documented in the report. Note that no such tools will be available on the written exam.

Note: All suspected cases of plagiarism will be reported to the university disciplinary committee (disciplinnämnden)!