Lead Lab Designer and Guest Lecturer
Robotics for Software Engineers , University of Virginia, 2021
As the lead lab designer for this new class, I was given numerous responsibilities. I was tasked with further developing the simulator the students would use throughout the labs. I was also asked to give a lecture on robot perception.
Simulator
This class was taught during the COVID pandemic and thus was created as an online-only class. This meant that I was in charge of optimizing the simulator to run on virtual machines with limited and varying CPU limitations. I also updated the simulator from last year in two majors ways:
- I upgraded the simulator from a point simulator to one that contains the drone’s pose. This helped students visualize the drone’s roll, pitch, and yaw and better understand the complexities of operating a drone.
- I added new sensors to the drone, such as a down-facing camera, which allowed the students to learn and implement state-of-the-art robotic perception, such as machine learning and image process.
Lab Design
I was tasked with designing each of the following labs for this course. More information on the course can be found on the course website, which I was also in charge of designing and maintaining:
- Lab 1: Setting up the development environment and basic ROS
- Lab 2: ROS processes, communication, and simulation environment
- Lab 3: Representing States, System Parameterization, and Services
- Lab 5: Perception through Image Analysis
- Lab 7: Mapping and Motion Planning
Lecture
I was asked to give a lecture on the perception layer of autonomous systems. A video of my lecture is shown below. Note: parts of the lecture have been removed or edited due to privacy concerns for students which took this course.
Video coming soon.