Course syllabus
The lectures and exercises will be in the rooms shown in Time Edit, except for Q and A sessions which will be held via Zoom (see below).
All assignments and labs will be done in pairs. Find a partner and join the same pair group under the People section.
Introduction
The purpose of this course is to provide a deeper insight and understanding of the practical and theoretical challenges when developing the control of intelligent automation. An automation system that is intelligent will control machines and robots such that they effectively achieve various goals. This can be done by planning, optimizing, and adapting the actions of the resources. This requires not only smart algorithms and sensors but also distributed control, communication, and PLC programming.
The course is based on “learning by doing” and consists of hand-in and programming assignments, laboratories, and implementation projects. Through these practical activities, the understanding of intelligent automation will be deepened. The course also has a number of lectures and exercise sessions, where both theoretical and practical aspects of intelligent automation will be discussed.
Contact details
Martin Fabian
fabian@chalmers.se
Martin Fabian | Chalmers
My room is in the EDIT-building, Electrical Engineering, E2, floor 5, room 5418
Teaching assistants:
Nishant Parekh (Course Assistant), Nishant Parekh | Chalmers
Wenhao Lu, Wenhao Lu | Chalmers
Kristian Ceder, Kristian Ceder | Chalmers
Schedule
Preliminary schedule of the lectures:
- Intro, administration
- PLC programming
- Sequences
- States and transitions
- Graphs
- Planning
- Optimization
- Discrete control
- Planning and control
- Operations
- Transformations
- Conclusions
Q and A sessions (Övning)
The help out sessions, that happen most of the weeks, will be an ONLINE help out session using Zoom, where you can log in and ask questions about your assignment work. You will have a breakout room per group where you can work together with your partner. You can then ask questions in a discussion queue that will be opened 10 minutes before the session. There you will post your group number and we will come to your breakout room to help.
Zoom: https://chalmers.zoom.us/j/5244222524
Passcode: 476936
The sessions are planned for (as shown in TimeEdit with Questions and Answers or Övning)
Office open doors
Kristian: Tuesdays 16:00-17:00
Wenhao: Mondays 17:00-18:00
Nishant: Wednesdays 16:00-17:00
We are all in the EDIT-building, Electrical Engineering, E2, floor 5.
About the course
Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to)
- Understand the differences and similarities between intelligent and traditional automation and describe the challenges engineers face when developing automation
- Based on a specification, be able to implement the PLC control of a simple system
- Create models and specifications for an intelligent automation system using variables, states, transitions, and logical conditions.
- Be able to implement the data structure graph and algorithms to search in it.
- Understand the control concepts: combinatorial and sequential control
- Implement optimization algorithms for simple graph-based optimization,
- Implement planning algorithms for simple planning,
- Understand and make trade-offs in the design of intelligent and collaborative automation from a safety and sustainability perspective,
- Understand how a distributed intelligent automation system is structured and be able to implement simpler communication and integration
- Describe and take into account the challenges of distributed and asynchronous intelligent automation
- Explain the challenges and opportunities when people and machines work together
- Implement the control of a robot
- Understand the opportunities and challenges of developing intelligent automation using virtual simulation models and understand what a digital twin is.
- Explain some basic concepts for how a system can learn new things
- Together in a group, describe and analyze in writing and in a presentation, opportunities, threats and ethical aspects with intelligent automation.
- Together in a group, plan and implement an intelligent automation system that includes smart sensors, robots, machines and humans.
Organisation
The course is based on “learning by doing” and consists of hand-in and programming assignments, laboratories and implementation projects, as well as a small group assignment on opportunities, threats and ethical aspects with intelligent automation. Through these practical activities, the understanding of intelligent automation will be deepened. The course also has a number of lectures and exercise sessions, where both theoretical and practical aspects of intelligent automation will be discussed.
Literature
All literature will be distributed via the course homepage.
Examination including compulsory elements
Approved mandatory elements are required for a final grade.
Changes from last year
- Restructured lecturing schedule. The lecturing schedule has been reworked and improved.
- Assignment 3 (as numbered last year) has been removed. The important part of that assignment, the breadth-first search, is treated in detail in a lecture, and the relevant code will be given in the other assignments.
- The final full-day project has been shortened. We still have full days booked in the CASE lab, but as more code is given in advance this year, and some parts are removed, a 2/3-day should be enough (the intent is to shorten it to a half day).
Course summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
|---|---|---|