Description:

The course focuses on human-centered robotics: humanoid robots and human-robot interaction. Motivated by the vision of robot companions in our homes, this course introduces humanoid robot technology and its specific challenges and opportunities: (i) design, kinematics and inverse kinematics of humanoids, (ii) multimodal sensing - vision, touch, hearing, inertial sensing, etc., (iii) walking and balancing, and (ii) grasping. The second part of the course centers on human-robot interaction (HRI), which includes physical HRI (safety aspects, collaborative robots) and cognitive/social HRI - how to design robots and behaviors to be acceptable for people.

Contents:

1. Humanoid robots - motivation and history.
2. Humanoids - Design, Forward kinematics, Closed-form inverse kinematics.
3. Humanoids - Differential Kinematics, Inverse diff. kinematics, Singularities, Manipulability, Gaze control.
4. Live demos.
5. Multi-modal sensing and calibration.
6. Grasping.
7. Walking and balancing.
8. Human-robot interaction: introduction, physical and social interaction.
9. Physical interaction I: Legislation and standards. Speed and separation monitoring.
10. Physical interaction II: Human injury. Impact modeling. Power and force limiting.
11. Social interaction I.
12. Social interaction II.
13. Reactive motion control and planning for human-populated environments.
14. Embodied AI, baby humanoids, learning brain-like robot body models.

Seminar contents:

Students will work on assignments on the different topics.

Recommended literature:

Nenchev, D. N., Konno, A., & Tsujita, T. (2018). Humanoid robots: Modeling and control. Butterworth-Heinemann. Available as e-book through the CTU library.
Additional literature
Goswami, A., & Vadakkepat, P. (Eds.). (2019). Humanoid robotics: A reference. Springer.
Bartneck, C., Belpaeme, T., Eyssel, F., Kanda, T., Keijsers, M., & Šabanović, S. (2020). Human-robot interaction: An introduction. Cambridge University Press.

Keywords:

Humanoid robots, human-robot interaction

Abbreviations used:

Semester:

• W ... winter semester (usually October - February)
• S ... spring semester (usually March - June)
• W,S ... both semesters

Mode of completion of the course:

• A ... Assessment (no grade is given to this course but credits are awarded. You will receive only P (Passed) of F (Failed) and number of credits)
• GA ... Graded Assessment (a grade is awarded for this course)
• EX ... Examination (a grade is awarded for this course)
• A, EX ... Examination (the award of Assessment is a precondition for taking the Examination in the given subject, a grade is awarded for this course)

Weekly load (hours per week):

• P ... lecture
• C ... seminar
• L ... laboratory
• R ... proseminar
• S ... seminar