ROB 520: Motion Planning
Winter 2022



Instructor:
Dmitry Berenson
Office: 2268 FMCRB
Office Hours: By appointment
Email: dmitryb [at] umich.edu

We will use Piazza for questions and discussion. Access the class discussion site here.

We will use Gradescope for assignment submission and grading. Access the gradescope site through Canvas.

Time: Monday, Wednesday 3:00pm - 4:30pm

Location: 4440 EECS

Overview: Motion planning is the study of algorithms that reason about the movement of physical or virtual entities. These algorithms can be used to generate sequences of motions for many kinds of robots, robot teams, animated characters, and even molecules. This course will cover the major topics of motion planning including (but not limited to) planning for manipulation with robot arms and hands, mobile robot path planning with non-holonomic constraints, multi-robot path planning, high-dimensional sampling-based planning, and planning on constraint manifolds. Students will implement motion planning algorithms in open-source frameworks, read recent literature in the field, and complete a project that draws on the course material.

Prerequisites: Undergraduate linear algebra (e.g. MATH 214) and significant programming experience (e.g. EECS 281).

Book: Steven M. LaValle, Planning Algorithms, Cambridge University Press, 2006. Available on Amazon, or free online. This book covers most of the basics but much of the assigned reading will consist of recently-published research papers.

Syllabus: Please see here.

Tentative Course Schedule: