IIT Madras offers a free 12-week online course in robotics for students on the NPTEL (National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning) platform.

The course is called “Introduction to Robotics” and it is a bridging course for students from various disciplines to gain a basic understanding of robotics. The introductory course covers the mechanical, electrical and computational aspects of robotics.

ELIGIBILITY FOR THE FREE ONLINE ROBOTICS COURSE

IIT Madras Robotics Free Online Course will be most beneficial for UG and PG students.

DETAILED LESSON PLAN

Week 1: Introduction to robotics – History, evolution; Robotic Applications – Manufacturing, Defense, Rehabilitation, Medicine, etc., Laws of Robotics

Week 2: robot mechanisms; Kinematics – coordinate transformations, DH parameters

Week 3: Direct kinematics, inverse kinematics

Week 4: Jacobians, Static, Path Planning

Week 5: Actuators (electric) – DC motors, BLDC servo motors

Week 6: Sensors, sensor integration

Week 7: PWM control, joint motion control, feedback control

Week 8: Calculated torque control

Week 9: Perception, localization and mapping

Week 10: Probabilistic robotics, Path planning, BFS; DFS; Dijkstra; A star; Canvas ; Voronoi; potential field; Hybrid approaches

Week 11: Simultaneous localization and mapping

Week 12: Introduction to Reinforcement Learning

INSTRUCTORS FOR THE IIT MADRAS FREE COURSE

The instructors of this free online AI course are: Prof. Asokan T, Professor in Engineering Design Department and currently HOD at IIT Madras; Professor Balaraman Ravindran who is currently a Professor of Computer Science at IIT Madras and a Mindtree faculty member; and Dr. Krishna Vasudevan is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras.

HOW TO REGISTER

You can apply on the NPTEL website here.

HOW TO GET A CERTIFICATE

IIT Madras robotics paid online course is free but to get a certificate, learners have to sit for a proctored exam at one of the designated study centers.

The examination fee is Rs 1000 and the date is October 30, 2022 (morning session from 9am to 12pm and afternoon session from 2pm to 5pm).

The registration URL will be available on the NPTEL website when these registrations are open.

The official form has more details about the cities where the exam would take place.

A learner will only be eligible for a certificate if the average assignment grade >= 10/25 and the exam grade >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, the certificate will not be obtained even if the final mark >= 40/100.

The certificate will contain the name of the learner, his photo and the mark obtained in the final exam with the break. It will bear the logos of NPTEL and IIT Madras and will be verifiable online at nptel.ac.in/noc.

No paper copies will be sent; only the electronic certificate will be made available.

Check more details on NPTEL website.

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