Important formulas:

Speed of light = 300 * 10^6 m/s

Speed of sound = 340 m/s

Time of flight
Robotics 10m important questions:
Kinematics:

1.

2.
3.

4.

5.
6.

7.

8.
 9.

10.

11.

12. Define control commands to follow a line on the plane defined by ax+by+c=0.
13. Define control commands for moving towards a goal point (x’,y’) in the plane.
14. Derive the kinematic constraints of mini mars-rover robot. If left wheel spins at speed 240
rpm and right well spins at 120 rpm. What is the resulting motion of whole robot?

15. A differential drive robot is equipped with 8mm wheel on each side. The distance between
left and right wheel is 53mm. How long in the required time for the robot to turn 90 degree
when the wheel is rotating at 10 radians/sec?
Perception:

16.

17.

18.
19. You are building a mobile robot and you want to make sure that you pick an encoder for it
that is accurate enough to allow you to detect when the platform has moved 0.1mm. The
wheels of the platform have a radius on 100mm without load. The gear box between motor and
wheel is 1:20. The load of the platform compresses the wheels by 10%. What resolution do you
need for the encoder and where do you put it?

20. Assume that you own a car with drive-by-wire control so that you can easily hook up
a computer to control the motion of the car. Now assume that you want to make the
car able to follow a highway and stay in one lane.
(i) What sensors would you use and why?
(ii) Discuss what the the biggest challenges in making this system work in reality would
be?

21. Consider an omnidirectional robot with a ring of eight 70 KHz sonar sensors that are fired
sequentially. Your robot is capable of accelerating and decelerating at 50 cm/ s2 . It is moving in
a world filled with sonar-detectable fixed (nonmoving) obstacles that can only be detected at 5
meters and closer. Given the bandwidth of your sonar sensors, what is the approximate
maximum speed the robot can drive while ensuring no collisions? Assume the speed of sound in
air to be 340 meters per second.

22. Design an optical triangulation system with the best possible resolution for the following
condition: specify b (see figure)
a. the system must have a sensitivity of 1cm at a range of 2 meters.
b. The PSD has a sensitivity of 0.1mm.
c. f = 10 cm

23. Probability question from the question paper.

24. A wheeled mobile robot has three ultrasonic sensors mounted on the front of the robot as
shown in the following figure. The distance of each ultrasonic sensor to the center of the robot
d is 20cm. The robot detects obstacle in front of it, where the echo signal from the ultrasonic
sensors are 11.647 ms, 10.071 ms, and 11.647 ms for sensor 1 (S1), sensor 2 (S2), and sensor 3
(S3) respectively. The speed of sound in air is 340 m/s.

a. Sketch and calculate the position of the detected obstacles with respect to the robot’s
[10] coordinate system. Use the center of the robot C as origin and x axis in the robot
forward direction.
b. Is the obstacle in the front of the robot a wall? Use a hough transformation to
determine [10] whether the perceived obstacles are belong to a wall. Calculate the
equation for the line derived from the hough transformation in the robot coordinate
system.

25. Hough space problems from mock test last year.

26. Odometry from video.

27. A certain robot has 4 sonar sensors equally spaced around its circumference. The sensor
have a maximum range of d_max=3m.
If the robot is moving at 0.9m/s, what is the largest distance the robot could traverse before
sensing an obstacle that pops up 1.5 metres away?

28. The mobile robot is in a discrete world containing 10 discrete positions. The robot does not
know its position initially, thus the probability is equally distributed. There are landmarks on
position 3, 6 and 8. Whenever the robot detects the landmark, it has the probability of 0.3 and
otherwise 0.1.
  The robot moved right 1 step and sees the landmark P(x^t I u^t, x^t-1) = 0.2
 The robot then moved right again 2 steps and sees another landmark.
 Calculate the probability or the belief of the robot, explain it. Show all probability value
on each position. Solve using markov localization.

25. Consider a robot moving in a circle in 10 different positions counter clockwise direction. The
robot does not know its initial position. There are landmarks at 0, 3 and 6. The probability of
landmarks is 0.8 and the probability of others is 0.4.
 The robot sees landmark.
 The robot moves 3 positions counter clockwise direction and sees another landmark.
 The robot moves 4 positions again and sees no landmarks.
 Calculate the probability or the belief of the robot, explain it. Show all probability value
on each position. Solve using Markov localization.

Robotics 3m important questions:

Kinematics:
1. What is the difference between forward and inverse kinematics?
ANS: Forward kinematics: Transformation from joint space to physical space. Forward
kinematics refers to the use of kinematic equations of a robot to compute the position
of the end effector from specified values for the joint parameters.

Inverse kinematics: Transformation from physical space to joint space. Inverse

kinematics is the reverse process that computes the joint parameters that achieve a
specified position of the end effector.
2. What is the difference between holonomic and non-holonomic constraints?
ANS: Holonomic systems or holonomic kinematic constraints can be expressed as an explicit
function of position variable only.
The velocity function v(t) is said to be integrable if there exists a trajectory function s(t)
that can be expressed by the values of x,y,θ and s=s(x,y,θ).
When these conditions ∂²s/∂x∂y=∂²s/∂y∂x; ∂²s/∂x∂θ=∂²s/∂θ∂x; ∂²s/∂y∂θ=∂²s/∂θ∂y are
satisfied, then the robot is said to be holonomic.
Non-holonomic constraints require a different relationship, such as the derivative of a position
variable. Also known as non-integrable systems.
Measuring the distance travelled by each wheels is not enough to determine the final position
of the robot. One has to know that the movement was executed as a function of time.
When the above conditions are not satisfied, then the robot is said to be non-
holonomic.

3. Draw the different types of robot wheels.

4. Derive the velocity of point P for each of the wheel types (fixed wheel, centered orientable
wheel, off-centered orientable wheel and Swedish wheel.
ANS: Fixed standard wheel: v=rw* a_x
Centered orientable wheel: v=rw*a_x + (dt)*a_y. Here d=0. So v=rw*a_x
 Off-centered orientable wheel: v= v=rw*a_x + (dt)*a_y
Swedish wheel v=rw*a_x + U*a_s

5.
ANS: 1.) Degree of steerability = 0
2.) Degree of steerability = 0
3.) Degree of steerability = 1
4.) Degree of steerability = 1
5.) Degree of steerability = 1

6.

ANS:
7. Derive possible wheel arrangement for rolling vehicles using 2 wheels, 3 wheels, 4 wheels
and 6 wheels. Draw a diagram of those configurations including the active or passive wheels
ANS: Refer siegwart book for answer

8. If each leg of the robot is represented as two distinct events, e.g., leg down or leg up. How
many distinct sequences that can be done by a biped walker.
ANS: No. of distinct sequences = (2k-1)! = (4-1)! = 6.
Lift left leg
Lift right leg
Release left leg
Release right leg
Lift both legs
Release both legs

9. What is locomotion and mention it’s key issues.

ANS: Locomotion is the process of causing a robot to move from one place to another when
force is applied to the robot.
Key issues: Stability, characteristic of contact, type of environment.

10. What are the advantages of legged robots vs wheeled ones?

ANS: -Legged robots can overcome many obstacles.
-Adaptability and maneuverability of legged robots in rough terrain.
-Because only a set of contact points are required, the quality of the ground between
these points doesn’t matter as long as the robots maintain adequate ground clearance.
-It’s potential to manipulate obstacles in the environment.
-A walking robot is capable of crossing holes or chaos such that its reach exceeds the
hole width.

11. What are the challenges faced by legged robots and wheeled robots?
ANS: -Legged robots require more power and include mechanical complexity.
-The leg which includes several degrees of freedom must be able to sustain a part of the
robot’s weight and in many robots it must be capable of lifting and lowering the entire robot.
-High maneuverability will only be achieved if the legs have a sufficient degrees of
freedom to impart forces in different directions.

12. What are the assumptions of an idealized rolling wheel?

ANS: The robot is made up of rigid mechanism.
Steering axes is orthogonal to the floor.
The robot contains atmost one steering link per wheel.
No slip along the orthogonal direction of rolling.
No translational slip between the floor and the wheel.

13. What are wheeled mobile robots?

ANS: Wheeled mobile robots are a combination of physical (hardware) and computational
(software) components. They are a collection of subsystems namely Locomotion,
sensing, control, reasoning and Communication.

14. Difference between industrial and mobile robots.

ANS: -both are concerned with forward and inverse kinematics.
-However for mobile robots, encoder values don’t map to unique robot poses.
-Mobile robots can move unbound with respect to their environment.
-Position must be integrated over time depending on the path taken.
-There is no direct or instantaneous way to measure the robot’s position.

15. What are the assumptions of wheel kinematic constraints?

ANS: Pure rolling, no sliding, skidding or slipping, steering axes is orthogonal to the floor, No
friction between the rotating point and the wheel, wheels are not deformable.
16. What is mobile robot maneuverability?
ANS: Mobile robot maneuverability is the combination of mobility available based on sliding
constraints and additional freedom contributed by steering. Degree of maneuverability
is given by the equation  M =  m+  s.

17. What is open loop control? Mention its disadvantages.

ANS: Open loop control is the trajectory divided in motion segments of clearly defined shape.
Control Problem:
-pre-computes a smooth trajectory based on line, circle segments.
-not taking robot’s actual position into account.
Disadvantages:
- Computing a smooth trajectory is not an easy task
- Resulting trajectories are usually not smooth (acceleration, jerk)
- Limitations and constraints of robot’s velocity and acceleration
- Doesn’t adapt or change the trajectory when dynamic changes occur in the
environment.
18. Rank of fixed standard wheels. Calculate the rank of the following configuration
ANS: Unicycle – Rank:1, Differential drive (same axle) = 1; different axle = 2; Bicycle = 2

Perception:
19. Explain the mobile robot control scheme

ANS:
20. What is dead reckoning or deduced reckoning or odometry?
ANS: Odometry is defined as the process of determining the current position of the robot using
previously determined position and estimated speeds of the robot with elapsed time. Robot
motion is recovered by integrating proprioceptive sensor’s velocity readings.
PROS: straight forward CONS: Errors are integrated: inbound.
Heading sensors (gyroscope) can be used to reduce the accumulated errors but drift will
remain.

21. What are sensors? According to what does sensor vary?

ANS: Sensors are devices that are used in robots to perceive the environment. Sensors vary
according to their physical principle, bandwidth, price, resolution and energy needed.

22. Difference between Proprioceptive vs. exteroceptive sensors?

ANS: Proprioceptive sensors measure values internal to the system. Eg: wheel speed, heading
of the robot, battery status etc.
Exteroceptive sensors extract information from the environment. Eg: intensity of
ambient light, obstacles, unique features.

23. Difference between active vs. passive sensors?

ANS: Passive sensors measure energy coming from the environment. They are very much
influenced by the environment.
Active sensors: They emit energy to the environment and then measure the reaction.
Better performance, but influenced on and from the environment.

24. Give 3 examples for proprioceptive and exteroceptive sensors.

ANS: PROPRIOCEPTIVE: brush encoders, gyroscope, accelerometer
EXTEROCEPTIVE: ultrasonic range sensors, optical encoders, GPS, Inclinometer, compass

25. Give 3 examples for active and passive sensors.

ANS: PASSIVE: Bumpers (Tactile sensors) measure information arising from physical
interaction with its environment, brush encoders, compass, inclinometer
ACTIVE: optical encoder, ultrasonic range sensor, GPS

26.

27. Explain the principle of mechanical accelerometer.

ANS: Mechanical accelerometer is used to measure all external forces acting upon them
including gravity. It consists of a spring mass damper system.
Ma’’ = mx’’+cx’+kx
m-mass, c- damping coefficient, k – spring constant. At steady state a’’=kx/m.
On earth’s surface, the accelerometer always indicate 1g along vertical axis. To obtain
initial acceleration, the gravity vector must be subtracted. Conversely, the device’s
output will be zero during freefall. An accelerometer can measure acceleration along
only one direction. By mounting three accelerometers orthogonal to each other, a 3-axis
accelerometer can be obtained.

28. Explain the principle of MEMS accelerometer.

ANS: A spring like structure connects the device to a seismic mass vibrating in a capacitive
divider. A capacitive divider converts the displacement of a seismic mass into electric signal.
Damping is created by gas sealed in the device.
Characteristics:
Can be multi-directional, can measure upto 50g.
Applications: static and dynamic acceleration, airbag sensors.

29. Explain MEMS gyroscope.

ANS: MEMS gyroscope measures the coriolis forces acting on a MEMS vibrating structure. It is
based on the principle of the haltere of a two winged insect like flies. The wings are flapped
rapidly acting as gyroscope and informs the insect about the rotation of body during flight.

30. Briefly explain the principle of piezoelectric accelerometer.

ANS: Primary transducer is typically a single degree of freedom spring mass sytem that relates
acceleration to displacement. Secondary transducer (Piezoelectric discs) convert the
displacement of seismic mass into electric signal(Voltage).
Main charaacteristics:
Piezoelectric accelerometer does not work under constant acceleration (static conditions)
3D piezoelectric accelerometer can be made by combining 2 or 3 1D modules.
Advantages: (i) Vibration analysis (ii) Modal analysis (iii)Machine diagnostics (iv) Earthquake
sensors (v)Active vehicle suspension (vi) autonomously guided vehicles.

31. Explain the principle of IMU with block diagram. What is its main drawback?
ANS: An IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) is a device that uses measurement systems such as
gyroscope and accelerometer to determine the position (x,y,z), orientation (roll,pitch,yaw),
velocity and acceleration with respect to an inertial frame. Inorder to estimate motion, gravity
vectors must be subtracted. Furthermore, initial vectors should be known.
IMU devices are extremely sensitive to measurement errors in gyroscope and
accelerometer. Drift in gyroscope unavoidably undermines the estimation of vehicle
orientation in relative to gravity, resulting in incorrect cancellation of gravity vector. Further
since accelerometer data is integrated twice to obtain position, any residual gravity vector
results in quadratic error in position.
32. What are encoders? Explain wheel/motor encoders working.
ANS: Encoders are electro-mechanical devices that convert linear/angular position of the shaft
into analog and digital signals thus making it a linear/angular transducer. Wheel/motor
encoders are (i) proprioceptive sensors (ii) used to measure the position and speed of wheels or
steering speed (iii) high resolution – interpolation (iv) resolution – 64-2048 increments per
revolution (v) integrate wheel movements to get an estimate of the position -> odometer
Working principle:
Regular: counts the number of transitions but does not tell about the direction of motion.
Quadrature: uses two sensors in quadrature phase shift. The ordering of the wave that
produces a rising edge tells us the direction of motion. Resolution is 4times bigger.
A single slot in outer track generates reference pulse per revolution.

33. What is compass and mention its drawbacks.

ANS: Compass is a device used by the robots for absolute measure of orientation using
magnetic field on earth. Mechanical magnetic compass, gyrocompass, Hall effect, magneto-
resistive sensors are also used to measure magnetic true north.
Drawbacks:
(i) not suitable for indoor environment for absolute orientation
(ii) useful indoor (only locally)
(iii) weakness of earth’s magnetic field and can be easily disturbed by magnetic objects
or other sources.

34. Define gyroscope and explain mechanical and optical gyroscope.

ANS: Gyroscopes are heading sensors that preserve their orientation in relative to a fixed
reference frame. They provide absolute measure for the heading of mobile robots. Mechanical
gyroscopes-rate (speed) and standard gyro (angle), Optical Gyroscope – rate gyro
Mechanical gyroscope: Makes use of the inertial properties of a fast spinning rotor. Angular
momentum is created by the fast spinning rotor which makes the axis of gyroscope inertially
stable. No torque is transmitted from the outer pivot to the wheel axis. Spinning axis will
therefore be space stable. However friction in the axes bearings will introduce torque and so
drift -> precision.

35. Explain the working of Laser range finder. Mention the formula used in laser range finder.
ANS: Also known as LiDar – Light detection and ranging. Transmitted and received beams are
co-axial. Transmitter illuminates the target with the collimated laser beam. Receiver detects the
time needed for round trip. This mechanism with mirror sweeps for 2D and 3D measurement.
Operating Principles – Pulsated laser –resolving picoseconds, measurement of elapsed time
directly. Phase shift measurement to produce range estimation – technically easier than the
above method.

36. Why do you need four satellites for determining the position?
ANS: The first satellite locates you somewhere on a sphere (top left of Figure). The
second satellite narrows your location to a circle created by the intersection of the two
satellite spheres (top right). The third satellite reduces the choice to two possible points
(bottom left). Finally, the forth satellite helps calculate a timing and location correction
and selects one of the remaining two points as your position (bottom right).
(Refer diagram in the slide for better understanding).

37. What is localization?

ANS: Localization is location estimation by dead reckoning, measuring speed at sea, location
estimation using maps and lighthouses (natural and artificial beacons).
38. What are beacons? Mention their major drawback indoors.
ANS: Beacons are signal guiding devices with precisely known location. Natural beacons – sun,
stars or mountains, Artificial beacons – lighthouses. GPS has revolutionized modern navigation
technology. GPS are key sensors for outdoor navigation, not suitable for indoors. Beacons
require change in environment indoor – costly, limitations and adaptability to changing
environment.

39. What are motion-capture systems?

ANS: Motion-capture systems consists of several cameras that track the position of reflective
markers. Suitable for ground-truth comparisons and for control strategies. Useful for indoor
and outdoor application. Requires pre-installation and pre-calibration of cameras.

40. What is augmented reality tag?

ANS: Each tag has an unique identifier. Works in combination with the camera. Returns relative
pose of the camera (x,y,z) with respect to tag reference frame. Good for rough localization.
Accuracy depends on size and angle of sight of the tag.

41. Explain the working principle of GPS and the technical challenges.
ANS: Location of any GPS receiver can be determined by time of flight measurement (satellites
send orbital location plus time, the receiver computes its location through trilateration and
time correction).
Technical challenges:
- Time synchronization between the satellites and GPS receiver.
- Real time update on exact location of the satellite
- Precise measurement of time of flight – Quartz clock in the GPS receivers are not very precise.
- GPS have a nominal accuracy of 3 metres.

42. What are the error sources for GPS?

ANS: Ephemeris data errrors, Tropospheric delays, Unmodeled stratospheric delays, multipath,
Coverage-number of satellites under line of sight.

43. Explain differential global positioning system.

ANS: DGPS requires that GPS receiver known as base station, been set up at a precisely known
location. The base station receiver calculates it’s position based on the satellite signals and
compares it with the known location. The difference is then applied to the data recorded by the
roving GPS receiver. Position accuracies in sub meter to cm range.

44. Mention the range sensors used by robots.

ANS: Sonar, Laser range finder, time of flight camera, structured light.

45. Which factors determine the quality of time of flight in range sensors?
ANS: Inaccuracies of time of flight measurement, opening angle of the transmitted beam,
interaction with the target, variation of propagation speed.

46. Explain Laser triangulation with formula.

ANS: Laser triangulation uses simple geometrical properties of image to establish a distance
measurement. A well defined light pattern is projected onto the environment and the reflected
light is then captured by a photo sensitive line or matrix sensor device. D=f.L/x

47. What are ultrasonic range sensors? Explain the principle with formula.
ANS: An ultrasonic pulse is generated by piezo-electric transmitter, reflected by an object in it’s
path and received by an piezo-electric receiver. Based on the speed of sound in air and the
elapsed time from emission to reception, the distance between the object and the sensor is
calculated.
Characteristics: Precision influenced by angle to the object, useful in several cm to m, relatively
inexpensive.
Applications: Collision detection, distance measurement.
PROS: relatively cheap, used a lot (after studying its functions) and easy to use.
CONS: large angular uncertainty, specular reflections and soft surfaces absorb most of the
sound (difficult to detect).

48. Explain 3D Laser range finder

ANS: 3D Laser range finder is a laser scanner that acquires scan data in more than one plane.
Custom model of 3D laser range finder is built by nodding or rotating the 2D scanner in a
stepwise or continuous manner around an axis parallel to the scanning plane. A full spherical
view can be covered. By rotating speed of the turn table, angular resolution in the horizontal
direction can be made as small as desired.

49. Explain 3D range sensor (TOF Camera).

ANS: Works similar to lidar but the advantage is that the whole 3D scene is captured and there
are no moving parts.

50. Explain MESA swiss ranger.

ANS: Very low resolution, 3D information with high data rate, very compact and easy to
manage, high non-uniform measurement of noise.

51. Explain structured Light.

ANS: Eliminates the correspondence problem by structured light projection on the scene, Emits
collimated light by means of a rotating mirror. Reflected light is received by the camera. Range
to an illuminated point can be determined by a simple geometry.

52. Explain Microsoft Kinect: Depth computation-Depth from stereo and astigmatic lens.
ANS: Depth from stereo – Kinect uses an infrared projector and an infrared sensor. Analysing a
known pattern is known as ‘structured light’. IR projector projects a pseudo random pattern
across the room. Direction of each speckle is known and hardcoded into the memory of Kinect
processor. By measuring position of each speckle in IR image it’s depth can be computed.
 Astigmatic lens – Kinect uses a lens(astigmatic) with different focal length in x,y
direction. The shape of circle changes into an ellipse whose orientation depends on depth.

53. What is hough space and RANSAC ?

ANS: Hough space is used to extract lines, circles, ellipses or any form of shape from a binary
edge image using a voting procedure. The voting space is called Hough space.
RANSAC – Random Sample Consensus is the standard method for model fitting in the
presence of outliers (noisy data). They can be also used for line fitting, but to thousands of
other problems where the goal is to estimate the parameters of a model from a noisy data.

54. Difference between global localization and position tracking.

ANS: Global localization – Robot does not know it’s initial position. Position needs to be
estimated from scratch.
Pose tracking – Robot knows it’s initial position needs only to accommodate small errors
in odometry as it moves.

55. Difference between Continuous and discrete probabilistic map representation.

ANS: Continuous
i) Precision bound my sensor data
ii) Typically a single hypothesis pose estimate
iii) Lost when diverging
iv) Compact representation and reasonable processing power needed.
Discrete
i) Precision bound by resolution of discretization
ii) Typically multiple hypotheses pose estimate
iii) Never lost when diverging (after diverging it converges to another cell)
iv) Important memory and processing power needed. (not for topological maps)

56. PROS and CONS of kalman and markov localization.

ANS: Markov – localization starting from any unknown position
Recovers from ambiguous situations
But to update probability for all positions within the whole state space requires
a discrete representation of space (grid). The required memory and processing
power thus can be very important if a fine grid is used.
Kalman – Tracks the robot and is inherently very precise and efficient.
If the uncertainity of the robot is too large (due to collision with an object) then
the kalman filter will fail and the position is lost.

57. Mention the systematic and non-systematic sources of errors for odometer.
ANS: Systematic or determinant errors in odometry
(i) Unequal wheel diameters
(ii) Wheels misalignment
(iii) Incorrect wheel base
(iv) Limited resolution during integration (measurement resolution, time increment)
Non-systematic or non-deterministic erros in odometry
(i) Unequal floor contact
(ii) Variation in contact point of the wheel.

QUESTION PAPERS