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Robotics The SAAST robotics program will introduce students to the state of the art in robotics, manufacturing, and automation, separating reality from the hype. Students will be introduced to important concepts in robotics in class, while concurrently working in the lab to acquire the technical skills they will need to build robots that can execute a task. In the classroom, coursework will cover the basics of sensing, actuation and control, and embedded programming. In the lab, students will be instructed in using numerical machine tools, embedded programming, interfacing with sensor and actuators, and robot programming. The culminating experience will be a group project in which each group will build a mobile robot that can be teleoperated with some limited onboard autonomy. The mobile robot is based on a TXT-1 1/10 scale monster truck, TXT-1. Construction will proceed in phases, with competitive demonstrations at the end of each phase. The challenge will be to design and construct the TXT-1 Monster Truck, learn to drive it using a radio controller, and add an arm capable of acquiring and collecting target objects. Faculty Advisor: Professor Vijay Kumar Vijay Kumar received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University in 1985 and 1987 respectively. He has been on the Faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics with a secondary appointment in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987. He is currently the UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Dr. Kumar's research interests lie in the area of robotics and networked multi-agent systems. He directs the GRASP Laboratory , a multidisciplinary robotics and perception laboratory and is also a co-founder of Bio Software Systems, a start-up company in Camden commercializing novel software tools for the analysis of regulatory networks. Dr. Kumar is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a Senior Member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and Robotics International, Society of Manufacturing Engineers. He has served on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, Editorial Board of the Journal of Franklin Institute and the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design. He is the recipient of the 1991 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator award, the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the 1997 Freudenstein Award for significant accomplishments in mechanisms and robotics and the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Kawamori Best Paper Award. He served as the Deputy Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science from 2000-2004. Instructor: Jim Keller Jim Keller joined the GRASP Lab staff in late 2002 as a project engineer. He is also a student in the MEAM department. Prior to coming to Penn, he enjoyed a 20-year career in the helicopter industry with the Boeing Company, where he worked on handling qualities, stability and control for nearly all of their rotorcraft products. Through 2004 his work with the GRASP Lab was largely in support of the DARPA-sponsored Multiple Autonomous Robot Software (MARS) research project at GRASP, where he worked with an autonomous blimp and fixed wing aircraft for coordination of ground robots from aerial platforms. He is now working on autonomous path planning for aerial and underwater vehicles. Instructor: Terry Kientz Terry Kientz is an Electronic Engineer that has worked for the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Pennsylvania for more than seven years. He has over 18 years' experience in various areas of engineering and fabrication from rehabilitation and medical device design to one-of-a-kind prototypes. His electronic design experience is in analog and digital circuits, microcontrollers, and data acquisition systems, and his mechanical fabrication experience includes extensive experience in machining and welding. Terry has worked with faculty, staff and students on various aspects of both electronic and mechanical design. He also developed an undergraduate laboratory course (MEAM 247) that focuses on robotics and electromechanical design. Terry received his AS in Electrical Engineering Technology from Waterbury State Technical College and his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut. He has advanced training as a Rehabilitation Engineer from the University of Virginia. Instructor: Dave Cappelleri Dave Cappelleri is a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, working in the GRASP lab. His research interests include micro and meso-manipulation, mechatronics, robotic system integration, medical robotics, and MEMS design and fabrication. Dave earned a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering in 1998 from Villanova and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering in 2000 from Penn State. He worked for three years for a medical device company called Radionics before returning to school to pursue a Ph.D. here at Penn in the Fall of 2003. Dave has been a Teaching Assistant for the MEAM undergraduate lab class and the senior/masters level Design of Mechatronics Systems class, an instructor for the SAAST 2005 and 2006 Robotics programs, and is currently a mentor for the US FIRST Robotics team from The Haverford School in Haverford, PA. Sample Schedule (subject to change) Week 1
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