About CSci1480

CS148 is an introduction to fundamental topics in autonomous robot control. This course focuses on the development of ``brains'' for robots. That is, given a machine with sensing, actuation, and computation, how do we develop programs that allow the machine to function autonomously? We answer this question through a series of class discussions and group projects.

This year, CS148 projects center on a ``robot soccer'' task, where we program a robot vacuum-like devices to play soccer in a structured environment. Various approaches to robot control (spanning reaction to deliberation) are covered using the Player/Stage/Gazebo (PSG) robot framework and Brown SmURV robots (which are iRobot Roomba/Create hardware with onboard Pentium-class ITX computers).

CS148 class meetings explore the technical, societal, and philosophical aspects of autonomous robots and human-robot interaction. Discussions amongst the class pose and address questions related to how robots can contribute to society, what technical functionality is needed, and how will such technologies affect the human-robot dynamic.

Meeting time/place: T,Th 1-2:20 (J Hour) in CIT 368
TA hours: T 7-9 or Th 4-6 in CIT 404
Prerequisites: CS4 or CS15 or CS17 or permission from the instructor
Mailing list: cs148(at)list.cs.brown.edu