Bridging Theory And Practice In A Senior Level Robotics Course For Mechanical And Electrical Engineers

As a diverse discipline, robotics is a synthesis of a variety of subjects such as kinematics, dynamics, controls, mechatronics, mechanical design, artificial intelligence etc. The crossover of multiple areas makes the instruction of robotics courses a challenging task. Traditional robotics courses in mechanical and electrical engineering mainly focus on the analysis and modeling of classical robotic systems such as a two-to-six degrees of freedom robotic manipulator arm or a simple wheeled mobile robot. However, as more and more new branches of robotics are emerging in recent years (nanorobotics, biology-inspired robots and so on), it has become clear that materials covered in traditional robotics courses are not sufficient for students to solve new problems or create new robotic systems. It is therefore imperative that robotics courses be updated, and in many cases, redesigned to account for new branches of robotics that call on students to be competent in the theoretical underpinnings and also have the skills and confidence to apply these to real applications demanded by current practice. This paper first introduces the importance of robotics courses in the curricula of engineering programs, followed by results of a survey that reports on the features of robotics courses in several universities in the United States. The difficulties of designing a robotics course are then addressed. Finally, a suggested structure of a senior level robotics course is proposed. Introduction In the year of 2005, the Robotics Education Workshop took place in Robotics Systems and Science symposium at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 1 . The main goal of this workshop was to discuss how to turn robotics into a core course that could be taught in every accredited Mechanical Engineering (ME), Electrical Engineering (EE), Computer Science (CS) undergraduate and graduate program in the United States, indeed, all over the world. Over 30 robotics professors from universities and institutes in the US, Europe, and Asia participated in this discussion and they all believed that it was a good time to start considering in which ways robotics could be taught broadly and then, determine and implement corresponding actions. The opinions of these professors were mostly due to the computing revolution and recent advances in actuators and sensors, which make it possible that today’s personal computers (PCs) could become tomorrow’s personal robots (PRs). Actually, the importance of robot-related projects in engineering curricula had already been well recognized by educationists 2 , especially as a tool in the early stage of engineering programs to foster students’ motivation and provide engineering design-oriented experience. Currently, complete robotics curricula are only available at a few US universities or institutes with expertise in robotics research, such as University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and so on. At UPenn or CMU, by taking robotics and robotics-related courses, graduate students can fulfill the requirements on course hours towards their doctoral degrees 3,4 . Most recently, UPenn announced a master’s degree in robotics 5 . However, in other institutions, robotics courses and robotics curricula are still difficult to design because of the imbalance between ME, EE and CS topics, the lack of low cost teaching platforms and labs, etc.. Page 14291.2 Before analyzing the collected examples of robotics courses from different universities and institutes, two important characteristics of robotics should first be addressed. 1. Robotics is a synthesis of a variety ME, EE and CS subjects. There is not a unified classification of these subjects. In this paper, the subjects are generally divided into two groups for convenience. First, Robotics Science. This group mainly includes the theories upon which robots are analyzed, such as kinematics, dynamics, control theory, optimization theory, artificial intelligence and so on. The second group is Robotics System, which mainly includes the key technologies used to implement the results of theoretical analysis, such as hardware design of robots, actuators, sensors, controllers, materials, electronics, software architecture and so on. Since so many subjects are involved in robotics, it is not surprising that by taking different tracks, more than two introductory robotics courses without any overlap could be proposed. 2. Robotics can greatly foster students’ innovations and creativity. The value of robots projects in the early stage of engineering programs mainly lies on the understanding of design process. The theoretical analysis could possibly be none and the building of robots could just be based on Lego ® kits. However, during this process, students are putting their creative solutions into reality. Since the robotics itself and most recent emerging new branches such as humanoid robots, nanorobotics, biology-inspired robots, all originated from creative ideas, there is no reason higher-level robotics courses should ignore the innovative elements in design. In the following sections, the main objective of this paper is first stated, followed by an analysis of the results from a survey conducted over twelve syllabi from different universities. The potential challenges for students when taking robotics courses are also investigated and the suggestion for instructors in course design and delivery are addressed. Finally, a suggested structure of senior/graduate level introductory robotics courses in ME or EE departments is presented. The authors also put forward a robotics curriculum, including an outline with the connections between different robotics courses. Objectives The main objective of this paper is to combine knowledge of engineering education (effective approaches for student engagement and learning) with the authors’ experiences in robotics research to design a senior/graduate level robotics course. In recent years, as a new course in ME and EE programs, robotics is playing more and more of an important role, for instance, its role in drawing students into these programs and motivating interests in cutting-edge research areas. The design of such a course is a challenging task, which usually calls on continuous update due to students’ interests and newly emerging branches of robotics. The design process and considerations of such a robotics course, as an addition to the existing ME and EE curricula at Virginia Tech, are presented in this paper, including a suggested syllabus. P ge 14291.3 Robotics Syllabi Survey This survey was conducted on a variety of twelve syllabi collected from different universities and institutes in the United States, Switzerland and Singapore.