ME 449 Robotic Manipulation
Approximate Syllabus, Spring Quarter, 2002

In parallel with the topics below, we will be reading research papers applying the topics to industrial automation.

Kinematics (approximately weeks 1-4)

  • degrees-of-freedom, configuration space, configuration constraints, rigid bodies
  • translations, rotations, displacements, Lie groups (SE(2), SE(3))
  • SO(3): representations of spatial rotations
  • representations of spatial displacements and velocities, screws, twists
  • spatial contact constraints: polyhedral convex cones, convex combinations, form closure
  • planar contact constraints: rotation centers, Reuleaux' method, higher order methods
  • robot finger contact models (soft, hard, friction or no friction) and manipulation in the hand
  • planar configuration space with obstacles, visibility method
  • nonholonomic constraints, controllability, Lie algebras
    • Statics (approximately weeks 5-8)
  • forces, couples, wrenches
  • polyhedral convex wrench cones, duality of forces and free motions
  • force closure
  • Coulomb friction, friction cone, static equilibrium, wedging, jamming
  • fixturing and grasping with point contacts
  • solving rigid-body mechanics problems with Coulomb friction
  • planar friction analysis: force sphere, moment labeling, 2 finger grasping, peg-in-hole
  • planar contact patches, quasistatic pushing and sliding
  • stable pushing and nonholonomic motion planning
  • fixturing with finite contact regions
  • compliance control
    • Dynamics (Week 9)
  • rigid body dynamics, inertia matrix, Newton-Euler equations
    • Impact (Week 10)
  • planar rigid-body impact, Newton's, Poisson's, and Stronge's restitution coefficients