Project topics: The projects should be an implementation of either: a single robot system (involving complex behavior and demonstrated on a physical robot) or a multi-robot system (involving cooperation/communication/coordination between robots and demonstrated in simulation).

Test-beds: The following simulation environments and physical robots will be available for the project:

• The Robot Operating System (ROS) (www.ros.org/wiki/). ROS (Robot Operating System) provides libraries and tools to help software developers create robot applications. It provides hardware abstraction, device drivers, libraries, visualizers, message-passing, package management, and more. ROS is licensed under an open source, BSD license.
• 10 Player-compatible ActivMedia Pioneer 3 DX robot. The robot is equipped with laser and sonar sensors, and a PTZ camera.
• 1 Player-compatible ActivMedia Pioneer 1 AT robot. The robot has 7 sonar sensors and requires the use of a laptop (not provided)
• 10 Robosapien robots (on-board CPU)
• 10 Create robots (separate computer boxes - provided)

Project report: For each project students should prepare a final project report, which should include the following:

• Title, author
• Abstract
• Introduction and motivation
• Problem definition, including project goals, assumptions, constraints, and evaluation criteria
• Details of proposed approach
• Results and objective experimental evaluation and/or sound theoretical proof of the proposed approach
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Review of relevant literature and previous research and how it relates to the project
• Discussion and conclusion
• References
• Appendix (relevant code or algorithms)

Timeline: The project development should adhere to the following timeline:

• Project proposal - outlines the specific goals, implementation platform and the proposed approach - due on February 17 (see the syllabus).
• Project status report - describes the current status of the project and constitutes a partial report of the final version. The partial report needs to contain Abstract, introduction and motivation, review of relevant literature, problem definition (goals, constraints, etc.), what has been done, what is still to be done - due on April 14 (see the syllabus).
• Project presentation (live demos are highly encouraged) - during the final exam time on May 12.
• Project report - May 12.

The final project report and the project status report should be formatted using the style format for IEEE Transactions publications found at: http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/authors/transjnl/index.html (use the templates under the "Template for all Transactions (except IEEE Transactions on Magnetics)" section).

• Introduction, development of the robotics field
• Reactive systems
• Hybrid systems
• Behavior-based systems
• Navigation and mapping
• Robot Learning
• Multi-robot control
• Biologically inspired robotics
• Human-robot interaction

Paper reports: During each lecture we will discuss a numbers of papers on a specific research topic. Students must read the papers before class and submit, for each of the papers presented that day, a brief report for each paper. The reports should be submitted at the beginning of the class when they are discussed and must contain:

• Student's name
• Title and authors of the paper
• A short paragraph summarizing the contributions of the paper
• A critique of the paper that addresses the strengths and weaknesses of the paper

All reports should be typed - no hand-written reports will be accepted.

Paper presentations: During the semester, each student is required to present several papers to the rest of the class. Each presentation should take about 25-30 minutes and must be prepared as if presented in a formal conference (i.e., slides, projector). This presentation should assume that the audience has read the paper, and not spend more than about 15 minutes summarizing it. The rest of the presentation should be spent on discussing the paper, its strengths, weaknesses, any points needing clarification. The presentation will be followed by class discussions in which all students will express their point of view and general comments on the paper.

The table below presents the tentative schedule of assigned readings.

Grading policy (tentative, subject to change):

Late policy: No late submissions will be accepted.

Academic integrity: Students are encouraged to study together, however each student must individually prepare his/her solutions. Cheating or plagiarism are not permitted and will be sanctioned according with the UNR policy on Academic Standards. You should carefully read the section on Academic Dishonesty found in the UNR Student Handbook (copies of this section are on-line). Your continued enrollment in this course implies that you have read it, and that you subscribe to the principles stated therein.