An introduction to Control Feedback, Robotic Programming and Piloting (28 - 30 May 2019 at The Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban)
This two-and-a-half-day course will be an introduction to the skills necessary for efficient piloting in robotics. The course will introduce control feedback as the scripting technique for getting technology to achieve programme goals, and how commercial avionics / auto-pilot software is tuned. These lectures will then lead into practical sessions in programming, tuning and piloting simple indoor rovers.
The basis for this course is that, at the present time, environmental, mobile Autonomous Systems, be they sub-sea or airborne, are limited by power capacity and communication. Planning and implementing power-efficient missions enhances platform endurance. This efficiency is best achieved by an understanding of how the robot’s auto-pilot works, so power is not wasted by what become conflicting user-commands.
The lectures and practicals will be based around ev3 ‘Mindstorms’ Lego robots; this agile unit provides a platform for learning basic real-time, multi-threading robotic scripting, initially in the LabView-based ev3 language, then in python/linux. No prior experience in either is necessary.
Practicals will be indoor 2D-versions of real life environmental challenges such as auto-tracking (seals or cetations), plume mapping, and surveying with swarms.