CS504

Advanced Topics in Neurobotics,
Behavioral Robotics, and Exoskeletons
    
UI fall schedule and to get enrolled
download a flyer for this course

For Idaho Falls students enrolling through ISU system in IF, click here
Fall 2008
class period: Tue/Thu 12 :00pm–1:15pm mdt (first class will be on Aug. 26)
office hours (please make an appointment): Tue/Thu 11:00am–12:00pm mdt (10:00am–11:00am pdt)

Offered:

  1. Idaho Falls live (CHE 301)
  2. Moscow (Blackboard)
    • for more information, click here

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Catalog data:
Course title: CS504 Advanced Topics in Neurobotics, Behavioral Robotics, and Exoskeletons (3 cr)
Topics: This is an advanced topics course in Biologically Inspired Neurobotics and Behavioral Robotics (BINBR). The focus is on the development of relevant tools, methods, and design of such systems. The course will develop a theoretical framework for major issues in BINBR.
The principles, design, and practice of behavior-based autonomous robotic architectures through a survey of these systems will be given. Relevant biological and psychological models of behavior, knowledge building and learning in autonomous robots, reactive versus cognitive, mind and machine, modular perception, robot colonies, and future trends in robot intelligence will be covered. Programming intellect, such as reinforcement learning and self-organizing algorithms, and mathematical models of mammalian neurons will be covered. Prereq: perm. Graduate standing or instructor permission. 

Instructor:
Milos Manic, Ph.D.
 University of Idaho

UIIF College of Engineering at IF, UIIF CS Dept
1776 Science Center Drive, TAB Ste.#303,
Idaho Falls, ID 83402;
ph. direct: 208.282.7845; fax:208.282.7950;
email: misko@uidaho.edu
url: http://www.cs.uidaho.edu/people.html
url: http://husky.if.uidaho.edu

This course is offered for the first time at the University of Idaho. One of the uniqueness of this interdisciplinary course is that students from CS, ECE, ME, NE, or Neuroscience programs will be able to find solutions to their research problems.

Applications investigated will range from commercial examples (PocketBot, Khepera, Lego Mindstorms, Seegrid “Tugger”), via haptics of future (Novint Falcon, 3D controllable surface textures), to various forms of human-system interaction (biomechatronics and exoskeletons) and neural implants, to neuromarketing .

Class description (pdf)
Class policy (pdf )
Services Available Through Disability Support Services (pdf)

By the end of the course, students will be expected to understand the issues in behavior based robotics based on biologically inspired designs (biomimetism and bioimitation), physiology of brain activities, brain controlled (neural) interfaces, and human-robot cognitive and physical interaction.
Students will be expected to have reached a level of mastery of mathematical tools (such as Matlab), be versed in the reinforcement learning and self-organizing algorithms, neural mathematical models of mammalian neurons ; their advantages and disadvantages, and programming experience in developing such systems.

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  • Important links
    • Idaho Falls students:
      • For Idaho Falls students enrolling through ISU system in IF, the course is listed at http://classes.isu.edu/fall/UCS.shtml under Index 192909.
      • Register for the course at the ISU/UI website: http://my.isu.edu/direct (Index Number UCS 504, and choose either 192909)
        • INL employees: Fill out the INL Form 360.03A in Lotus Notes
      UI academic schedule and to get enrolled click here.
    • Various links on:
      • UI courses, schedule, academic calendars, how to get enrolled, libraries, tutoring and academic assistance programs, disability support services, and many others.
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  • Textbook
    • This course is a compilation of large number of books. It is very hard to choose a single textbook that would cover them all. I will go through each of these books in our first class
  • Texbooks:
    •   
      		George A. Bekey, Autonomous Robots: From Biological Inspiration to Implementation and Control (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents), The MIT Press, Hardcover: 593 pages, ISBN-10: 0262025787, ISBN-13: 978- 0262025782, June 1, 2005.
      		Stefan Wermter, Günther Palm, Mark Elshaw (Eds.), Biomimetic Neural Learning for Intelligent Robots: Intelligent Systems, Cognitive Robotics, and Neuroscience (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), August 22, 2005, ISBN-10: 3540274405, ISBN-13: 978-3540274407.
      		José L. Pons, Wearable Robots: Biomechatronic Exoskeletons, ISBN: 978-0-470- 51294-4, April 2008.
  • Reference books:
    • Sara Morgan, Programming Microsoft® Robotics Studio (Paperback), Microsoft Press, ISBN-10: 0735624321, ISBN-13: 978-0735624320, Paperback, March 15, 2008.
    • Robotics Research, Results of the 12th International Symposium ISRR, Series: Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics , Vol. 28, Thrun, Sebastian; Brooks, Rodney; Durrant-Whyte, Hugh (Eds.), 2007, XV, ISBN: 978-3-540-48110-2.
    • Behavior-Based Robotics, Ronald C. Arkin, May 1998, ISBN-10: 0-262-01165-4, ISBN-13: 978-0-262-01165-5
    • Autonomous Robots, from Biological Inspiration to Implementation and Control, George A. Bekey, June 2005, ISBN-10: 0-262-02578-7, ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02578-2
    • Biologically Inspired Robot Behavior Engineering, by Richard J. Duro, Jose Santos, Manuel Grana, Physica-Verlag Heidelberg; June 30, 2004, ISBN-10: 3790815136, ISBN-13: 978-3790815139.
    • Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI, Rodney A. Brooks, The MIT Press; July 16, 1999, ISBN-10: 0262522632, ISBN-13: 978-0262522632.
    • Reinforcement Learning, An Introduction, Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto, March 1998, ISBN-10: 0-262-19398-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-262-19398-6.
    • Artificial Minds, Stan Franklin March 1997, ISBN-10: 0-262-56109-3, ISBN-13: 978-0-262-56109-9.
    • Jones Joseph L., FLYNN Anita M., Mobile Robots - Inspiration to implementation, A.K. Peters, ISBN 1-56881-011-3, 1993
    • Kurzweil Raymond, The age of intelligent machines, The MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-11121-7, 1990

      In addition, an extensive reference material can be found at my list of references on neurobotics Neurobotics, cognitive control, behavioral robotics, exoskeletons, and mechatronics, neural networks , intelligent control , and data mining . This is also a good place to start when you start working on your project/research paper

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  • Laboratories & software downloads
    • Course downloads (passw. req.)
    • Microsoft
      • Microsoft Robotics
      • Microsoft Robotics Studio (1.5) Downloads

    •           

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  • Course Material
    • Class notes click here (passw. req.)
    • Homework & Exam assignments click here (passw. req.)
      • At the end of the course, please complete the evaluation for this course on Banner: https://vandalweb.uidaho.edu/index.htm/
      • Homework should be sent to misko@uidaho.edu with the following subject: "[CS504] HW1 Family_name" for homework number 1, "[CS504] HW2 Family_name" for homework number 2, etc. Attachments in doc, PDF, or ps format are welcome. Please compile your results into a single file only.
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  • Questions
    • FAQ's page
    • SUBJECT LINE: Please, use [CS504] Family_name Question. I might be receiving over 100 emails a day. If you do not want yours to get lost, please always double check your subject line. If urgent response is needed, please use [CS504] URGENT Family_name Question.
    • SIGNATURE: Please, sign your email with Family_name, First_name Middle_name, Stud_ID: xxx-xxxxx, Live/Stream/CV/DVDs, course section. Some of the names are fairly similar, and this way we will avoid confusion and facilitate faster correspondence.
  • Grades
    • You can check your grades here. (passw. req.)
    • IMPORTANT: To be assigned a password, send me an email to misko@uidaho.edu with the following information: full name, student ID, Live/Stream/CV/DVDs, course section, email, and mailing address that you want to be used for correspondence in this class.
    • NOTE: Please be aware that the correct mailing address needs to be updated on Banner too! Also, please note that starting July 1, 2003, the only official email account is your VandalMail account. Please note that I will not be replying to any other account such as yahoo, hotmail, etc.
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