B.Sc - Mobile Robotics

First Header	Second Header
SWS	4
Hours	60
Assignment	Yes (1)
Exam	No (0)
Languages	C++, Python, Bash

Introduction

Welcome to the lecture materials for the course, B.Sc Mobile Robotics, held at MCI IV. This lecture covers a lot of topics related to robotics, such as a brief introduction to the concept of robotics, their hardware, and a general overview on what kind of software we need to know to design robots.

Warning

This lecture assumes you are comfortable looking and writing C++. While the lecture covers C++ as detaily as possible, If you need a refreshment, or want to study at your own pace, please have a look at the Cpp Lecture slides which covers the essential points you need to start ROS 2 programming ball rolling.

Important

This lecture is four (4) SWS and has one assignment and there will be no exam.

ALl lecture materials for this course will be published here. So please check here for most up-to-date material.

Important

All .pdf files are password protected and to decrypt them, a password will be provided to you in SAKAI as an announcement.

Note

This lecture will be predominantly self-studied. The initial lecture will follow a standard format and once the topic shifts focus to programming (i.e., Linux/ROS 2) you will follow curated documents with detailed instructions to learn by practice.

Decrypting pdf with pdfDecryptor.py

If you want convenience and not having to constantly enter password to your.pdf files, then this file is for you.

For easy use:

1. Download all material as a zip, and extract it to your location of choice.
2. Using the terminal of choice navigate to the directory.
3. Once in the directory, type the following into your terminal where password is given in SAKAI.

python3 pdfDecryptor.py "password"

Note

It is possible (nay, very likely) need to install pikepdf to make this code work. For that type the following into your terminal.

pip3 install pikepdf

If your system give error about being external add --break-system-packages to the aforementioned command.

Table of Contents

The lecture will cover the following points.

1. Introduction to Robotics.
   • Concepts of mobile robotics
   • State of the arts
   • Software needed to make a robot tick
2. A Crash course on Linux
   • Introduction to the Command-line Interface
   • Navigating the file structure
   • Common Command-line commands
   • Linux Processes
   • Threads and Processes
3. Introduction to ROS 2
   • Installing ROS 2
   • Concepts and Commands
   • Creating a package
   • Understanding tf2

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Cheers,

D. T. McGuiness