SAPHARI NMMI
WINTER SCHOOL
Rome, February 20-25, 2015
The school will feature classes on the basics of Soft Robotics design and control, and will allow extensive hands-on sessions on physical variable-stiffness robots.
The school's climax will be a final competition among student teams on a challenging task to be performed by a soft robot, demonstrating performance superior to rigid robots.
The winning team will be awarded with a qbmate, the 12 dof variable stiffness humanoid torso produced by qbrobotics following the Natural Machine Motion Initiative open-hardware design.
In-class lecture topics will include:
-
Introduction to Soft Robotics
-
Elements of Human Motor Control
-
Variable Stiffness Actuators from the User's Point of View
-
Control Basics for Soft Robots
-
Joint-space and Cartesian Impedance Control
-
Optimal Control of Variable Stiffness Actuators
-
Stiffness and Impedance Estimation
Speakers:
Basic knowledge of robotics (a first course on kinematics, dynamics, control) is assumed.
Programming skills in Matlab and other languages are also assumed.
Hands-on experience will be gained on real VSA actuators. Participants will form teams equipped with a kit of actuators, boards, flanges, batteries etc. at disposal for the whole week. Teams will have access to all open-source HW and SW code available on the NMMI platform, and are expected to share the code/applications/examples they will develop on the same platform.
Registration is free for the whole event, including coffee breaks. Because of the hands-on nature of the school, the number of attendees will be limited. Therefore, there will be a selection of applicants on the basis of their CV and motivations. Admission notifications will be sent via e-mail by February 5th.
The school will be held at the Auditorium Antonianum, within walking distance from the Ancient Rome's Forum and Colosseum.
