Artificial intelligence and robotics

MSc in Management Engineering

Prof. Paolo Rocco, Prof. Jessica Leoni

 

Schedule

TH 14:15-18:15 room BL27.06

 

Learning objectives and course syllabus

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a combination of methods, techniques, and tools, that are revolutionizing today's life. At the core of AI is machine learning, i.e. the elaboration of data that allows systems to learn, recognize properties in data, improve performance, without being explicitly programmed. On the other hand, robotics is a well-established technology that is making a significant shift towards broader application thanks to the use of AI.


The purpose of this course is to familiarize the students with the most common tools of machine learning and expose them to both basic elements of robotics and new trends (like collaborative and humanoid robotics), with special emphasis on the application of AI to robotics.

 

Course syllabus is as follows:

1. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Learning from data.

AI and Machine Learning applications in engineering

2. Machine learning for atomic data

Data quality and quantity.

Univariate and multivariate visualization techniques.

Data normalization and pre-processing.

Features extraction and selection, learning paradigms, performance assessment, interpretability for atomic data.

3. Machine learning for time series

Time series: filtering, detrend, feature extraction and selection.

Learning paradigms, performance assessment, interpretability for time series data.


4. Introduction to robotics

Industrial robots: basic concepts and examples.

Market and trends of industrial robotics.


5. Robot kinematics

Position and orientation of a rigid body.

Direct and inverse kinematics.

Differential kinematics: Jacobian and singularities.


6. Robot planning and control

Robot programming.

Trajectory generation in joint space and in operational space.

Closed loop control (elements).


7. Collaborative and humanoid robotics

Collaborative robotics: motivation and use cases.

Safety standards.

Humanoid robots: a general introduction.

 

Prerequisites

Basics in linear algebra and calculus.

 

Bibliography

Lecture notes

B. Siciliano, L. Villani, G. Oriolo, A. De Luca: Foundations of Robotics., Springer, 2025 (in English)

 

 

Lecture notes

Lecture notes are available in the WeBeep channel for students enrolled in the course.

 

Lab sessions

ABB RobotStudio

RobotStudio is a professional virtual environment for offline programming of robots, interfaced with a virtual controller.

Please install beforehand your own copy of RobotStudio. You can download the software at the following address:

https://new.abb.com/products/robotics/robotstudio

 

Please notice that it is a somewhat heavy download (about 2 GB). Also, the program runs only in a Microsoft Windows PC.

Following the instructions available at the above web page, you should fill a form to request your own copy of the software and then, after installation, activate a free license that is valid for 30 days. Interested students can ask us for a license for educational purposes (we have several of them).

 

Once you have installed RobotStudio, you also need to install the appropriate RobotWare for our lab sessions. Follow these instructions:

 -open RobotStudio

-select the tab "Add-ins"

-select the version 6.11.02 of the RobotWare IRC5 and install it

 

Once the installation is complete, by selecting again the tab "Add-ins", the installed RobotWare will show up under the installed packages. Please proceed to the installation of the RobotWare before the lab session.



Exams

Students will take a written examination, consisting of open-ended questions. An optional project work on the AI part of the course will be proposed as well.

Texts of exams will be published here.

Results of the exams will be notified to the students through the online services.

For the robotics part, students may also want to look at the exams of the previously offered course Industrial automation and robotics