COMP 655: Advanced Topics in Robotic Manipulation
Instructor: Kaiyu HangCredits: 1 or 3
Location: DH 1042
Lectures: 4:00PM - 5:30PM W(23-AUG-2021 - 3-DEC-2021)
Office Hours: By appointment
Course Description
Manipulation is one of the major research fields in robotics. The ultimate goal is to enable robots, using any parts of their embodiments, to physically interact with and reconfigure the world. Being an interdisciplinary problem, research in robotic manipulation has to address a set of subproblems from various perspectives, such as grasping, motion planning, prehensile and non-prehensile manipulation, affordance and task modeling, hand design, and perception. This course not only provides a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art research on developing robotic manipulation systems of different functionalities and complexities, but also offers opportunities for students to formulate their own research problems, which are based on optional projects that can potentially lead to research publications. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, this course is designed and offered to students in Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering.Prerequisites
No specific previous courses is required for taking this course. However, it will be helpful if you have some background knowledge in any of: AI, planning, machine learning, computer vision, control, optimization, sensing, kinematics, and dynamics.Grading
1-credit: The final grade will be based on the weekly paper reviews (40%), in-class discussion and presentations (40%), and the final presentation (20%).3-credit: The final grade will be based on the weekly paper reviews (20%), in-class discussion and presentations (20%), final presentation (15%), and the optional project (45%).
Writing Reviews
Two papers (research articles or survey/review papers) will be given one week before each class (except for the first week). Every student needs to read both papers and write a review for one of them. The review submission is due at 6pm on the day before each class. For writing the review, please follow the structure below:Research Articles:
1. What problems are addressed in the paper?
2. What related work were discussed in this paper?
3. What is the core methodology of this work?
4. What is the major weakness of this work?
5. Do you think the experiments were well designed and the evaluations were informative?
6. What are potential future directions of this work?
Survey/Review Papers:
1. What is the research area being surveyed? Why is this area important?
2. What are the major problems in this field?
3. What are the major research methodologies in this field?
4. Which research methodology do you like the most? Provide your reasons.
5. Which research methodology you do not like? Provide your reasons.
6. What potential real-world applications can be developed based on the research of this field?
Presentations
In-class presentation: There will be two presentations (15 minutes) in every class on the two papers we read in the previous week. After each presentation, we will form two groups, one support and one against the paper, to hold a 30 minutes discussion. The presenter is responsible for initiating the debate.Final Presentation: Every student will give a final presentation (10 minutes) to propose a research project, which has to address a relevant research question using novel ideas that can potentially make a contribution to the robotic manipulation community.
Optional Project (3-credit)
The optional project is research-oriented. In the first 3 weeks, students who would like to do such projects need to propose research ideas and discuss with me. Once we agree on a project topic, the student will conduct a complete research cycle, including reading relevant papers, formulate research questions, propose methods, design and conduct experiments, and finally write a 6-page report (template will be provided). The final presentation for 3-credit students will be 20 minutes.Students can do optional projects individually or in groups of maximum 2 members.