ECE 309 consists of 3 credit hours of lecture and 1 credit hour of laboratory.
The class
lectures will use transparencies (overhead projection sheets) for presentation. Copies of these transparencies (class notes)
will be available from the
The instructors plan to cover these notes thoroughly in class, with the exception of some mathematical detail and details regarding special hardware devices. For the most part, these notes are based on the textbook. In addition to the textbook, other material will be made available covering PLC’s and mobile robots. The student should also study the textbook to acquire a more fundamental and complete understanding of the concepts and details regarding robotics in terms of background, examples, and discussion. The concepts and details covered in the class notes indicate the extent and emphasis of the topics as a basis for homework and exams.
Matrices play an important role in robotics. For this reason, there will be a separate set of notes that will cover matrix algebra and matrix properties. For this topic, the student is also referred to Appendix A in the textbook.
The course grade will be based on
3 Hour Exams (a total of 300 points), Homework (scaled to 100 points) and Lab (25 %
of the total). Graduate students will be
assigned additional work as required by the
The laboratory for ECE 309 will meet in room 320 EBW. There are two complete robotic work cell setups in the laboratory. Each work cell consists of two different types of 5 axis robot manipulators, two belt conveyors, a carousel, several sensors, actuators (output devices), a PLC (programmable logic controller), and a vision system. It is desired that experiments and projects be performed by groups of two students, each group using a work cell.
The course schedule shows that there are 4 sections of the 309 laboratory that are scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday. It is desired to balance out the number of students in each section as much as possible. The laboratory TA and the course instructors will work together to try to achieve this result during the first week of classes.
There will be two sources of reading material associated the laboratory in ECE 309.
The first reading assignment (during the first week in preparation for the second week) from the laboratory notes is pages 1–7 (up to “adding a Gryphon”), 9 (starting from “adding sub-devices”) – 18 (up to “programming robotic devices”), 27–33, 40-44, all from Lab Manual-Part A and pages 9 – 18 from Lab Manual-Part B.
Week of August 23: Introduction to Laboratory Equipment
Week of August 30: Conveyor Belt Sensors and Robotic Prime Movers
Week of Sept. 6: Introduction to Robotics: Parameters and Measurements
Week of Sept.
13: Forward Kinematics Using the
Week of Sept.
20: Point –to-Point Control Using
the
Week of Sept 27: Control of Position and Orientation
Week of Oct. 4: Inverse Kinematics
Week of Oct. 11: Trajectory Control
Week of Oct. 18: Developing a Work Cell; Conveyor Belts and Carousels
Week of Oct. 25: Work Cell Design Project
Week of Nov. 1: Vision: Image Capture, Processing and Analysis
Week of Nov. 8: Integrating Vision into the Work Cell
Week of Nov. 15: Work Cell Design: Vision, Robots, Conveyors and a PLC
Week of Nov. 29:
Week of Dec.
6:
Lab Reports: In general, each lab experiment should be followed by a group (two students) lab report to be submitted one week after completion of the lab work. Report Format: a) Title Page (title, lab partner, course, and date), b) Introduction (objectives), c) Experimental Set-Up, d) Experimental Procedure, e) Results, f) Discussion, g) Solution of the Prelab, and h) Appendices (programs or other details). Diagrams and Tables should be included when appropriate. There will be a lab quiz at the end of the course (12 % of the lab grade)
Graduate Credit: Students seeking graduate credit for this course must register in 7330 instead of 4330; students registered in 7330 will be assigned 2 additional projects in this course (15 % of the total grade).
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