Introduction: Anatomy of a

Manipulation System

MIT 6.800/6.843: Robotic Manipulation

Fall 2021, Lecture 1

Follow live at https://slides.com/d/ySKk564/live​

(or later at https://slides.com/russtedrake/fall21-lec01)

Course Info

Instructor: Russ Tedrake

TAs:

Website: http://manipulation.mit.edu

Rachel Holladay

Dani White

6.800 is a CI-M

Laura McKee

Nora Jackson

Communications Instructors from Comparative Media Studies/Writing

Recitations Fridays 2-3pm (starting Sept 17)

from the course website:

Logistics

• Students: Make sure you're on Piazza
• Review the course guidelines.
• Read/comment on the lecture notes

• Weekly problem sets throughout the class, due Wed.
  • ​PSet 0 released tomorrow (on the course calendar).
• Final project.

Today

• What do I mean by "manipulation"? (with examples!)
• The systems theory perspective
• Anatomy of a manipulation system
• Goals for the course

Matt Mason says

• Definition 1 (etymological). Manipulation refers to the activities performed by hands.
• ...
• Definition 5. Manipulation refers to an agent’s control of its environment through selective contact.

Matthew T. Mason.  Toward Robotic Manipulation.  Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, 1:1-28, 2018.

Motivation

Consider the task of loading a dishwasher...

(One project I've been working on at TRI Robotics)

Low-level: feedback control

(continuous time/state/action)

Task-level: Planning

(discrete/symbolic)

From a controls perspective...

How important is feedback in manipulation?

The complexities of grasping in the wild.  Nakamura et al, Humanoids, 2017

The complexities of grasping in the wild.  Nakamura et al, Humanoids, 2017

To be clear: we're not just controlling the arm

state of the robot x state of the environment

What is drake?

drake.mit.edu

Logistics

• Students: Make sure you're on Piazza
• Review the course guidelines.
• Read/comment on the lecture notes

• Weekly problem sets throughout the class, due Wed.
  • ​PSet 0 released tomorrow (on the course calendar).
• Final project.

(and I promise I'll keep working on getting us a proper room!)