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Robotics Engineering

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Don’t anthropomorphize robots. They hate it when you do that.

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

What is Robotics Engineering?

Robotics engineers work on a diverse set of technologies. These include self-driving cars, rovers for space exploration, large-scale automated logistics systems, and small continuum robots for minimally invasive surgery. The Robotics Engineering major combines skills and knowledge from several fields including aerospace engineering, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science and material science. Additionally, you will learn skills specific to robotics such as computer vision for robotics systems. The goal of the EngSci Robotics major is to allow students to design, evaluate, study and implement intelligent robots. The major focuses on systems integration. This means you will learn to connect the different parts of a robot (software, hardware, computational, etc.) to make a functioning product.

With the wide range of experience students gain from this major, many choose to continue their studies in graduate research. Many other students choose to enter industry to help design robots and robotic components for the world’s growing number of engineering and technology companies. Others choose the entrepreneurial route and use their own ideas to develop products for the market. With companies, governments and people beginning to adopt more robotics into their everyday lives (robotic vacuums, human prosthetics, or manufacturing robots), the field and market is in an exciting period of growth and diversification.

Why Choose Robotics Engineering?

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Courses in Year 1 and Year 2 That Relate to Robotics Engineering:

Year 1

ESC180: Introduction to Computer Programming

Your first programming course in university! This course gives you an introduction to programming (very important for making robots do what you want). Your programming skills will help you design the “brain” of your robot.

ESC190 – Algorithms and Data Structures

Your second programming course! Rather than coding skills, this course focuses on things you can do with code, how to compare different programs and how to use different strategies and tools to complete a task using programming.

ECE159 – Fundamentals of Electric Circuits

You’ll need to understand the basics of circuitry to connect the physical systems and the “brain” of the robot. This course will help introduce you to concepts in circuitry. The practicals involve hands-on experiences in which you build and measure the properties of your own circuits. Combined with the theory-focused lectures, this course gives you a strong base for all your future electricity courses in Robotics.

ESC103 – Engineering Mathematics and Computation and MAT185 – Linear Algebra

ESC103 will show you the basics of linear algebra. You will use this knowledge (along with that gained from MAT185) in upper-year courses such as Dynamics and Introduction to Robotics. Rigid body (robot movement) is described using matrices! Much of the computing a robot does in its operation is also implemented as linear algebra through code.

ESC101: Praxis I and ESC102: Praxis II

Your experience with robotics will differ based on the projects you and your team take on in Praxis. Whether it is building a contraption that detects knives being thrown or creating a better experience for people in waiting rooms, you will have an opportunity to explore different levels of robotics integration throughout these courses.

Year 2

ECE253: Digital and Computer Systems

This course combines features of circuits with programming. ECE253 bridges the gap between the small electrical components that build computers and the programming we do with them. You’ll learn basic logic circuits, logic computation and functions of a simple computer processor. Along the way you’ll learn to program simple processors in the low-level Assembly language. You will use some of these principles in upper-year courses.

Interesting Courses in This Major

Student team built drone from the ROB498 course

ROB498 Robotics Capstone Course

This is the Robotics Capstone Design course, where students apply technical knowledge to solve a challenging real-world robotics problem. Supported by the teaching team comprised of domain experts, students work in groups and have considerable freedom in developing a complete robotic hardware and software system based on the “sense-plan-act” framework. In addition, each student completes a critical reflection on team performance and the evolution of their experience with design during their undergraduate program.

ROB521 Mobile Robotics and Perception

This course covers the fundamentals of mobile robotics and sensor-based perception. These topics are applicable in self-driving cars, space exploration, unmanned aerial vehicles, search and rescue and much, much more! Topics include sensors, localization, mapping, route planning, path tracking and software frameworks. Labs in this course use a mix of software simulations and hardware. This course will be highly applicable for building any autonomous system!

CSC384 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

This course aims to cover the theories and algorithms that cover a large part of the basis for computational intelligence. The specific topics include decision-making under uncertainty, learning, classical automation and logical representations and reasoning! You will cover both practical programming applications and theory.

Interview with Robotics Option Chair

Where To Get Some Experience Before Deciding?

Many extracurriculars offer opportunities to engage with different areas of robotics.  Many design teams have a circuitry team, programming team, and/or a mechanical design team, so joining any would be a great choice to gain some experience. Furthermore, there’s a lot of software and AI-focused teams that you can join to get experience with programming. We’ve listed a few that you can check out, but you’ll learn about even more once you get here.

 
Visit the Skule Clubs and Design Teams pages to find more extracurriculars. 

Check out the EngSci majors website here for more info: