Control lecture

From Maslab 2007

Take Away Points

• You cannot just hack together a robot controller, you must design a robot controller
• Design simple, modular behaviors and then decide how to compose these behaviors to achieve the desired task
• Simple finite state machines make a solid starting point for your Maslab control systems
• Integrating feedback into your control system "closes the loop" and is essential for creating robust robots

Presentation Slides

• Powerpoint
• PDF (1 slide per page)
• PDF (4 slides per page)

Resources on Athena

• PID Java Controller Lab
• PID Matlab Scripts

Resources Online

• Voronoi Path Planning Applet
• Emergent Controller Simulator

Video Examples

• PID oscillations due to overshoot
• PID controller with feedback through gyro to turn 180 degrees
• Robot using odometry to retrace its steps (skip to 2:40 in video)

Useful Books

• Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implementation. Joseph Jones, Anita Flynn, and Bruce Seiger. 1998.
• Behavior-Based Robotics. Ronald Arkin. 1998.
• Robot Programming : A Practical Guide to Behavior-Based Robotics. Joseph Jones and Daniel Roth. 2003.