A NEW DISCIPLINE FOR A NEW CENTURY: ROBOTICS ENGINEERING
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CHAPTER 10
A NEW DISCIPLINE FOR A NEW
CENTURY: ROBOTICS ENGINEERING
MICHAEL A. GENNERT, FRED J. LOOFT, and GRÉTAR TRYGGVASON
10.1 INTRODUCTION
As technology changes, the occasion sometimes arises when a new engi-
neering field that either addresses a new technology, combines current areas
in a new way, or both, is needed. Not all new degree programs have
succeeded but a few, such as Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science,
were exactly what the relevant industry needed at the time of their intro-
duction. In addition to meeting emerging needs, a new degree program
allows curricular and pedagogical innovations that are more difficult to
implement in mature programs. Thus, the introduction of successful new
degree programs often parallels the development of new transformative
technologies [1].
Robotics—the combination of sensing, computation, and actuation in the
real world—is emerging as one of the “hottest” new area of technology. The
decreasing cost and increasing availability of sensors, computing devices,
and actuators is opening up opportunities for new devices and products that
are limited only by our imagination. These new robotic products will ease
our lives by obeying our commands and anticipating our needs. They will
be the robots envisioned by futurists of the past, although often in a form
that has no resemblance to C3PO, R2D2, or ASIMO.
Robotics is already a large industry. Over a million industrial robots are
currently estimated to be in operation and in 2007, when over a hundred
thousand new industrial robots were sold; the annual market size was
estimated to be around $18 billion, including software, peripherals, and
Shaping Our World: Engineering Education for the 21st Century, First Edition.
Edited by Grétar Tryggvason and Diran Apelian.
Ó 2012 by The Materials, Metals, & Materials Society. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
179180 A NEW DISCIPLINE FOR A NEW CENTURY: ROBOTICS ENGINEERING installation [2]. The market for service robots is about half of this, but predicted to grow faster. The National Intelligence Council has identified Robotics to be one of the six disruptive technologies [3]; the DoD roadmap for unmanned systems calls for a larger role for robots and autonomous vehicles [4]. While industrial and military robots currently heavily drive commercial robotics, the emergence of a consumer market is inevitable [5]. Indeed, technology leaders like Bill Gates believe that soon there will be robots in every home [6]. In Massachusetts, robotics is a fast growing billion-dollar industry that employs thousands of people [7]. Nondefense applications are in abun- dance and include, for example, security, transportation, elder care, auto- mation of household tasks, customized manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and interactive entertainment. Engineers currently working in the robotics industry are primarily trained in Computer Science, Electrical and Com- puter Engineering, or Mechanical Engineering. However, robotics is inherently interdisciplinary and no single discipline provides the full breadth demanded as new applications become more sophisticated. Truly smart robots rely on information processing, decision systems and artificial intelligence (computer science), sensors, computing platforms, and com- munications (electrical engineering), and actuators, linkages, and mecha- tronics (mechanical engineering). To develop succesful products, some training in management is also important and a science and social science background could be important as well to tap into applications in the biological sciences and medicine, for example. To educate young engineers for the robotics industry, in the spring of 2007 Worcester Polytechnic Institute introduced a BS degree program in Robotics Engineering (RBE). In addition to meeting the needs of the emerging robotics industry, the introduction of the degree was motivated by the strong interest in robotics among precollege students, as demonstrated by the large number of robotics competitions currently in existence. In 2008, for example, the four competitions sponsored by FIRST engaged 160,000 youth participants (6–18 years old) who with the assistance of 73,000 mentors and volunteers built over 13,000 robots. The students came from all 50 states and 36 other countries [8]. Botball robotic soccer competitions have included over 40,000 students to date [9]. Other robotics events, such as BattleBots IQ [10], Robocup, and Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology (BEST) Robotics with over 10,000 students involved annually [11], also demonstrate the high level of interest in robotics. The robots.net Robotics Competition web page lists over 120 competitions in 2009 [12]. Thus, a degree program in robotics should provide a particularly attractive entry point for young people interested in
EDUCATION IN ROBOTICS 181 an engineering career. We note that while the term mechatronics has already been used to capture the fusion of mechanical and electrical engineering—with computing presumably implied—and that while mecha- tronics engineering degrees have been introduced in Japan, Europe, and elsewhere, robotics has an intuitive appeal and familiarity not captured by the more unfamiliar mechatronics. Indeed, mechatronics has not caught on in the US. 10.2 EDUCATION IN ROBOTICS Although robotics has not existed as an undergraduate degree program in the US until now, several universities have offered courses in robotics for three decades or more and a number of introductory level text books have been written. Proliferation of industrial robots on assembly lines in the 1980s motivated the introduction of courses in robotics in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering programs and classical books, such as Intro- duction to Robotics: Mechanics and Control [13] focused primarily on manipulator dynamics and kinematics. In Computer Science, cognitive aspects of robotics were seen as an application of AI, such as in The Psychology of Computer Vision [14]. During the 1990s additional courses were introduced with more sophisticated control theories (fuzzy neural network controllers and adaptive controllers) being the newer focus [15]. In the late 1990s and during the first year of the new century, advanced courses on robotics dealt with path planning, navigation, autonomy, com- munication, and all aspects of mobile robots [16]. At the same time, the development of robotic kits, such as Lego [17,18] and BOE-bot [19], have made robotics much more accessible, not only to college students but also to younger students. Currently, several universities offer courses focusing on various aspects of robotics. Those include Mechatronics course, such as ME307 Mechatronics and Measurement Systems at Colorado State University, which uses Mecha- tronics and Measurement Systems by Alciatore and Histand [20], supple- mented by an extensive laboratory manual [21]. Harvey Mudd College introduces students to computational interaction with the physical environ- ment in a course called CS154 Robotics, which was developed with partial support of a DUE grant from NSF. It uses the text Probabilistic Robotics by Thrun et al. [22], which has also been successfully used at Stanford University. The course at Stanford, CS329 Statistical Techniques in Robotics, explores mobile robotics from a statistical perspective and enables students to understand the limitations and capabilities of applying statistical analysis
182 A NEW DISCIPLINE FOR A NEW CENTURY: ROBOTICS ENGINEERING techniques to mobile robots. Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots by Siegwart and Nourbakhsh [23] has been successfully used at CMU in the course CS16761 Introduction to Mobile Robots, which introduces students to the fundamentals of mobile robotics, spanning mechanical, motor, sensory, perceptual and cognitive layers. The course website provides detailed infor- mation about the course, including the syllabus, robot platforms, and pro- gramming [24]. A repository of robotics courses may be found at http:// roboticscourseware.org/. Other examples of undergraduate level courses in robotics are easily found by searching on the Internet. While robotics engineering at the undergraduate level has traditionally been embedded in traditional engineering programs or computer science and thus generally treated as an application, rather than a separate discipline, a few US universities have introduced graduate degrees in robotics. For example, the Robotics Institute at CMU awarded the first PhD in robotics in 1990. Recently, the University of Pennsylvania intro- duced a MS degree programs in 2006, followed by the University of Michigan in 2008 and South Dakota School of Mines in 2009. A doctoral program in robotics was established at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2007. 10.3 THE ROBOTICS ENGINEERING BS PROGRAM AT WPI The development of the WPI Robotics Engineering program started in 2005 with a small group of faculty from the departments of Computer Science (CS), Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and Mechanical Engineering (ME) that met regularly to prepare a proposal for the degree. The WPI faculty approved the degree in the fall of 2006 and the Board of Trustees in March of 2007. The program was announced to potential students during the winter of 2007 and admission open-house presentations drew a large number of attendees. Although the window between the formal approval of the program and the deadline for admitting students was relatively short, students admitted in the fall of 2007 had the option of declaring the program as an intended major and many did so. The program was formally launched through a 1-day symposium in October 2007 [25] that featured several invited speakers and drew attendees from industry and academia, in addition to students from local high schools. The symposium was accompanied by the first meeting of the program advisory board, composed of representatives from the robotics industry. The degree program was advertised by a short video segment shown at the FIRST competition in the Atlanta, GA in April 2008 and by several presentations to potential students.
THE ROBOTICS ENGINEERING BS PROGRAM AT WPI 183
10.3.1 Degree Overview, Objectives, and Outcomes
The faculty group advocating the new degree program decided early on to take
a top-down approach to the design of the curriculum, starting with goals and
objectives. It was clear to all participants that while Robotics Engineering
would draw heavily from Computer Science, Electrical and Computer
Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, it was also obviously true that
the program would not simply be the sum of the material covered in these
disciplines. Rather, defining robotics engineering as a separate discipline in-
volved selecting material from the three disciplines that defined the core body
of knowledge for robotics. This involved making a distinction between what
every robotics engineer must know and what could be useful for some robotics
engineers. Thus, while a robotic engineer might conceivably at some point
need material covered in courses in thermodynamics and fluid dynamics, for
example, the group decided that these topics did not belong in the core body of
knowledge. The same consideration applied to semiconductor devices and
electromagnetic fields from electrical engineering, for example, and databases
from computer science. Similarly, the group attempted to identify material
that might be considered optional in CS, ECE, or ME, but should be required in
Robotics Engineering. Although the intention is to review the robotics
curriculum periodically, the reality is that the initial selection is likely to
form the core of the curriculum for a long time and this selection thus defines
robotics engineering as an undergraduate engineering discipline.
10.3.1.1 Educational Program Objectives The educational program
objectives are intended to define the context and the content of the program:
The Robotics Engineering Program strives to educate men and women to
. Have a basic understanding of the fundamentals of Computer Science,
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and
Systems Engineering.
. Apply these abstract concepts and practical skills to design and construct
robots and robotic systems for diverse applications.
. Have the imagination to see how robotics can be used to improve society
and the entrepreneurial background and spirit to make their ideas become
reality.
. Demonstrate the ethical behavior and standards expected of responsible
professionals functioning in a diverse society.
The group also adopted the standard ABET program outcomes to make
the program accredidable under the “General Engineering” ABET (a–k)
criteria [26].184 A NEW DISCIPLINE FOR A NEW CENTURY: ROBOTICS ENGINEERING
10.3.2 Program Structure and Curriculum
Research on engineering education has provided considerable insight into
how to keep students interested, deliver the material effectively, and stimulate
creativity. We have attempted to use some of these findings in designing our
curriculum. We know that the structure of the curriculum plays an important
role in overall student satisfaction and retention and that an early introduction
to engineering generally helps [27,28,29]. We also know that different
teaching methods appeal to different learner types but generally all people
learn more in an environment where the material is presented in a variety of
ways [30,31], and that creativity and innovation can be taught, or at least
stimulated, in a properly structured course [30,32,33,34].
The core of the Robotics program consists of five new courses: an entry-
level course (first year) and four “unified robotics” courses (sophomore and
junior years) based on a “spiral curriculum” philosophy where the students are
engaged in increasingly complex designs and various technical topics are
introduced as needed. These courses need to be taken in order and each builds
on the preceding courses. Thus, although all the RBE courses are open to
students from other disciplines, the prerequisite requirements make it difficult
for nonprogram students to take all but the first two or possibly three. In
addition to the RBE program courses, other courses are required from each of
the participating departments to ensure technical breadth and strength. Each of
the new RBE program courses includes elements from CS, ECE, and ME. To
add cohesion within courses, each course in the unified sequence has its own
focus, such as locomotion, sensing, manipulation, and navigation. The new
required RBE courses are
RBE 1001. Introduction to Robotics: Multidisciplinary introduction to
robotics, involving concepts from the fields of electrical engineering,
mechanical engineering, and computer science. Topics covered include
sensor performance and integration, electric and pneumatic actuators,
power transmission, materials and static force analysis, controls and
programmable embedded computer systems, system integration and
robotic applications. Laboratory sessions consist of hands-on exercises
and team projects where students design and build mobile robots.
RBE 2001. Unified Robotics I: First of a four-course sequence introducing
foundational theory and practice of robotics engineering from the fields
of computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineer-
ing. The focus of this course is the effective conversion of electrical
power to mechanical power, and power transmission for purposes of
locomotion, and of payload manipulation and delivery. Concepts of
energy, power, and kinematics will be applied. Concepts from staticsTHE ROBOTICS ENGINEERING BS PROGRAM AT WPI 185 such as force, moments, and friction will be applied to determine power system requirements and structural requirements. Simple dynamics relating to inertia and the equations of motion of rigid bodies will be considered. Power control and modulation methods will be introduced through software control of existing embedded processors and power electronics. The necessary programming concepts and interaction with simulators and Integrated Development Environments will be intro- duced. Laboratory sessions consist of hands-on exercises and team projects where students design and build robots and related subsystems. RBE 2002. Unified Robotics II: Second of a four-course sequence intro- ducing foundational theory and practice of robotics engineering from the fields of computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. The focus of this course is interaction with the environment through sensors, feedback, and decision processes. Concepts of stress and strain as related to sensing of force, and principles of operation and interface methods for electronic transducers of strain, light, proximity and angle will be presented. Basic feedback mechanisms for mechanical systems will be implemented via electronic circuits and software mechanisms. The necessary software concepts will be introduced for modular design and implementation of decision algorithms and finite state machines. Laboratory sessions consist of hands-on exercises and team projects where students design and build robots and related subsystems. RBE 3001. Unified Robotics III: Third of a four-course sequence intro- ducing foundational theory and practice of robotics engineering from the fields of computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. The focus of this course is actuator design, embedded computing, and complex response processes. Concepts of dynamic response as relates to vibration and motion planning will be presented. The principles of operation and interface methods for various actuators will be discussed, including pneumatic, magnetic, piezoelectric, linear, stepper, and so on. Complex feedback mechanisms will be implemented using software executing in an embedded system. The necessary con- cepts for real-time processor programming, reentrant code, and interrupt signaling will be introduced. Laboratory sessions will culminate in the construction of a multimodule robotic system that exemplifies methods introduced during this course. RBE 3002. Unified Robotics IV: Fourth of a four-course sequence intro- ducing foundational theory and practice of robotics engineering from the fields of computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. The focus of this course is navigation, position estimation,
186 A NEW DISCIPLINE FOR A NEW CENTURY: ROBOTICS ENGINEERING
and communications. Concepts of dead reckoning, landmark updates,
inertial sensors, vision and radio location will be explored. Control
systems as applied to navigation will be presented. Communication,
remote control, and remote sensing for mobile robots and telerobotic
systems will be introduced. Wireless communications including wire-
less networks and typical local and wide-area networking protocols will
be discussed. Considerations will be discussed regarding operation in
difficult environments such as underwater, aerospace, hazardous, and so
on. Laboratory sessions will be directed toward the solution of an open-
ended problem over the course of the entire term.
The Introductory course is aimed at first year students and the goal is to
give a broad but relatively shallow introduction to robotics and to
introduce hands-on project work. The course serves as an introduction
to the excitement and challenges in engineering and is suitable for
students in essentially any engineering discipline. Although most stu-
dents in the RBE program take this course in the freshman year, it is not
formally required and only counts toward the “engineering electives.”
Thus, a student with an extensive experience with high school robotics
competitions and strong technical background could start with the unified
robotics sequence.
The sophomore-level courses (RBE 2001 and 2002) emphasize the tech-
nical foundations of robotics as detailed in the course description and the
laboratory assignments, completed by teams of 2–3 students, are based on
VEX Classroom Laboratory Kits. The students are also provided with
additional DC motors, H-bridge motor drives, and custom-made mechanical
parts as needed. In addition to Cþþ: How to Program by Deitel and
Deitel [35], a custom textbook, which combines selected chapters from
Design of Machinery by Norton [36] and Fundamentals of Electrical Engi-
neering by Rizzoni [37], is used for the RBE 2001-2002 sequence.
The junior-level courses (RBE 3001 and 3002) provide a much more
deeper coverage of robotics, emphasizing the theoretical foundations.
Instead of the hardware and software kits used in the earlier courses the
students now must rely heavily on standard industrial components. The
components are, however, provided to the students. The philosophy behind
the content and design of this resource package is to provide a development
environment that is structured enough to avoid students wasting time
troubleshooting unreliable equipment, and yet is unstructured enough that
nontrivial design decisions are made by students. The components are
chosen to simplify assembly and interface concerns at the mechanical,
electrical, and software levels, but it is not a kit with the structure and the
limitations that such kits pose [38,39]. In addition to the textbooks requiredTHE ROBOTICS ENGINEERING BS PROGRAM AT WPI 187 for the sophomore courses, course notes covering more advanced topics are distributed in class. The laboratory exercises in all four courses are tightly integrated with the rest of the course and provide a nearly instant reinforce- ment of what is covered in the lectures. All the RBE courses consist of four lectures per week and one 2-hour laboratory session. In addition to the four unified robotics courses, the RBE program students are required to take several other courses, although following the general WPI philosophy those requirements are stated in terms of subjects, rather than specific courses—whenever possible. Before listing the RBE program requirements it is important to note the peculiarities of the WPI academic calendar where each semester is split into two seven-week terms (essentially 7-week quarters, A–B–C–D), during which students take three very intense courses. Terms A and B are taught in the fall (September to December) and terms C and D are taught in the spring (January to April). ABET requires one and a half years of engineering science and design which is equivalent to 18 courses. The WPI capstone project historically corresponds to three courses (one quarter of the academic year), leaving students with 15 courses in their engineering major. Of those courses the students must take at least five courses in Robotics Engineering (the introduction course plus the unified sequence, for example), three courses in Computer Science, includ- ing Algorithms and Software Engineering, two courses in Electrical and Computer Engineering, including Embedded Systems, and one course in Statics and one course in Controls. This leaves three elective engineering courses that must come from a list of approved courses. One of those must address advanced system concepts and the other two often include intro- duction to programming, advanced design, or industrial robotics. For students skipping the introductory course, several advanced courses in the three sponsoring departments have been crosslisted with RBE and new upper- and graduate-level RBE courses are being offered, allowing students to take one of those to satisfy the requirement for a minimum of five RBE courses. Like all majors at WPI (see Chapter 8), the program culminates in a capstone design experience wherein students synthesize their accumulated knowledge in a major project. The students must also fulfill the WPI general educational requirements, which consist of 6 courses in the humanities, 2 in social sciences, 12 courses in mathematics and sciences (1 year as required by ABET), and a 3 course equivalent junior project. The mathematics and sciences sequence must include Differential and Integral Calculus, Differential Equations, Discrete Mathematics, and Probability and at least two physics courses. In a new industry, there are enormous opportunities for new ideas and new products. To encourage students to become “enterprising engineers” (see Chapter 1; [40]), we require a course in Entrepreneurship. Although
188 A NEW DISCIPLINE FOR A NEW CENTURY: ROBOTICS ENGINEERING one course certainly is not sufficient for those who intend to form their own businesses, we strongly believe that engineers need to “think outside the cubicle” and must understand the business contexts within which they operate. This is important not only for entrepreneurs who deal with venture capitalists, lawyers, and other financial and marketing resources to start up new companies but also for “intrapreneurs” who generate new business ideas and plans to present to senior management within their existing companies. Thus, this course could include identifying ideas for new businesses, feasibility analysis, evaluation for appropriateness, and busi- ness plan development. Industry has reacted with great enthusiasm to the entrepreneurship component. Robotics has always inspired fear as well as awe. While we certainly have not faced the issues confronted by Asimov’s Dr. Calvin [41], it is clear that massive autonomy will change our live in possibly more profound ways than electricity and the Internet and raise profound and possibly disturbing questions. The massive deployment of robots on the battlefield, for examples, raises questions ranging from how we relegate the decision to take a life to a machine to how notions of courage and bravery change as robots fight our battles [42]. Industrial robots have already changed manufacturing but a significant drop in cost and increase in capabilities might lead to an even more dramatic change in the cost of “stuff.” In any case, the robotics engineer must be aware of such concerns and sensitive to the need to integrate societal concerns into his or her designs. Thus, we explicitly require all students to take a course addressing the impact of technology on society.
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