EN3010 Introduction to Energy Systems for Robotics

This course will provide students with information and guidance in the basic technologies and concepts in operational energy related to robotic and autonomous systems applications. The objective of the course is to provide the civilian and active-duty workforce with a distributed learning experience that includes the essential concepts and skills necessary to understand the energy considerations for DOD robotic and autonomous systems. The course focuses on the effective use of robotics in the modern battlespace, the inherent operational energy challenges in ensuring mission success, and energy considerations when assessing or defining the system requirements or performance parameters for new system acquisition.

Prerequisite

None

Lecture Hours

4

Lab Hours

0

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the course, students shall be able to:

• Describe operational scenarios for which robotic systems might be utilized and explain how the system would be employed to achieve the operational objectives.
• Explain common on-board robot control architectures to include organization into functional modules and hierarchies, human-system interface requirements, and the level of autonomy that is achieved.
• Specify power subsystem requirements based on mission requirements and identify suitable onboard systems that will meet them.
• Express the strengths, weaknesses, and tradeoffs associated with specific robot power subsystem implementations.
• Illustrate the applicability of energy harvesting to robotic systems and discuss its relationship to more traditional energy resupply approaches.
• Explain factors associated with forward deployment of robotic systems and describe how they constrain system design and employment decisions and processes.
• Utilize rigorous performance characteristics to compare competing approaches to communication and sensor management in the context of mission requirements and available computational and power resources.
• Discuss the tradeoffs associated with local (I.e., onboard) versus remote processing of mission data to meet specific computational and operational requirements and compare alternative computational architectures.
• Apply various motion planning algorithms for robot navigation in both known and unknown environments.
• Express the relationship between path planning complexity and power and communications requirements.
• Compare the power requirements of comparable manned and unmanned systems.
• Explain current DOD policy on the development and utilization of potentially lethal robotic systems in the context of the systems’ levels of autonomy and the degree and type of human interaction and oversight.
• Apply the Law of Armed Conflict to the employment of robotic systems.