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Back to Modern Robotics, Course 2: Robot Kinematics

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Modern Robotics, Course 2: Robot Kinematics by Northwestern University

4.9
stars
279 ratings

About the Course

Do you want to know how robots work? Are you interested in robotics as a career? Are you willing to invest the effort to learn fundamental mathematical modeling techniques that are used in all subfields of robotics? If so, then the "Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control" specialization may be for you. This specialization, consisting of six short courses, is serious preparation for serious students who hope to work in the field of robotics or to undertake advanced study. It is not a sampler. In Course 2 of the specialization, Robot Kinematics, you will learn to solve the forward kinematics (calculating the configuration of the "hand" of the robot based on the joint values) using the product-of-exponentials formula. Your efforts in Course 1 pay off handsomely, as forward kinematics is a breeze with the tools you've learned. This is followed by velocity kinematics and statics relating joint velocities and forces/torques to end-effector twists and wrenches, inverse kinematics (calculating joint values that achieve a desired "hand" configuration), and kinematics of robots with closed chains. This course follows the textbook "Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control" (Lynch and Park, Cambridge University Press 2017). You can purchase the book or use the free preprint pdf. You will build on a library of robotics software in the language of your choice (among Python, Mathematica, and MATLAB) and use the free cross-platform robot simulator V-REP, which allows you to work with state-of-the-art robots in the comfort of your own home and with zero financial investment....

Top reviews

SS

Sep 30, 2018

It is a great start for learning kinematics of open chain robots, i wish i could learn ore about the closed chain robots too, but they have given the boost, now its your turn to learn more and more

RM

Jul 7, 2020

This was very challenging course if you are not already familiar with things like Jacobians and eigenvectors. Thankfully the lectures were great in helping me understand the gaps in my knowledge.

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51 - 59 of 59 Reviews for Modern Robotics, Course 2: Robot Kinematics

By James D

May 16, 2020

Great Class

By Xiao C

Aug 14, 2022

good

By Chris S

Feb 22, 2019

Great course for going into the next layer of robot design. A bit heavy in theory at times but I assume this becomes more practical moving forward. It would be great if they added some complimentary videos to help translate some of the heavy math components to the quiz questions (i.e. here are the equations we just learned, now here's how to apply them to a practical situation).

By Georges T A

Sep 12, 2019

Something of what I think is an error from the response checking program, in the Q5 did not allow me to obtain the 100% mark. which I think is a shame. but overall this course has been an enjoyment. If everything was clicking I would have give it a 5 start

By Abizer P

Feb 18, 2021

Amazing course for learning kinematics and statics of a Robot. Using exponential coordinates and screw axes notation in this course made it easy to give physical meaning to jacobian.I liked this aspect.

By Ashish R

Feb 3, 2019

Good course, very heavy on theory with little to no example problems. Its good to teach theory but should be followed up with multiple real world problem to solve by hand or code.

By Zejd I

Apr 25, 2022

Theory based course which for me is three stars, but it has one great project which is five stars so overall 4 stars. Course just like first one need more examples and practice

By Tanisha G

Jun 29, 2020

Peer-graded assignments could be a little more effective with supervision.

By Christopher S

Aug 19, 2019

The project was a little harder than expected, but I feel I learned a lot