ROBOTIC MANIPULATION

Robotic Manipulation

Learn how robots turn perception into action. Using pick-and-place tasks, explore spatial representations, motion planning, grasping, and control to understand a complete manipulation system.

Instructor: Wenshuo Li   /   9 weeks   /   Materials available: Weeks 1–2

Materials

Read lecture slides online or download the PDFs. Slides and bundled documentation are in Chinese.

01

Introduction: How Robots Perform Manipulation Tasks

Explore perception, planning, control, and execution feedback through pick-and-place tasks. Learn the course objectives and the components of a robotic manipulation system.

View PDFDownload slides
Week 1 · 45 pages · PDF 4.6 MB
02

Coordinate Frames and Forward Kinematics

Study coordinate frames, rotation matrices, homogeneous transformations, and chains of coordinate transformations, followed by forward kinematics for planar 1R / 2R and serial manipulators. Includes 18 MATLAB examples covering the UR5e and wrist-mounted camera transformations.

View PDFDownload slidesDownload MATLAB code
Week 2 · 47 pages · PDF 11.0 MB · Code ZIP 18 KB

Running the Examples

MATLAB examples for Week 2

Before You Begin

The examples target MATLAB R2025a. Examples 01–15 and 18 use base MATLAB. Examples 16–17 use the UR5e model and require Robotics System Toolbox.

  1. Download and extract the MATLAB code archive.
  2. Set MATLAB’s Current Folder to robotics_week2_matlab.
  3. Run the environment check, then run one example or the full sequence.
setup_check
% Example: camera, world, and base frame transformations
demo09_coordinate_chain_camera_base
% Or run all examples in sequence
run_all_demos

The archive includes README.md for setup and notation, and LECTURE_MAP.md for the mapping between slide pages and scripts. Angles are in radians and lengths are in meters by default.

Download setup notes (Chinese)Download slide-to-code mapping (Chinese)

Schedule

Based on the Week 1 syllabus. More materials will be added as the course progresses.

Week 1Introduction and Manipulation Tasks
Week 2Coordinate Frames and Forward Kinematics
Week 3Inverse Kinematics and the Jacobian
Week 4Motion Planning and Collision Avoidance
Week 5Grasping and Contact
Week 6Perception and Pose Estimation
Week 7Force Control and Compliant Manipulation
Week 8Closed-Loop Pick-and-Place Integration
Week 9Emerging Directions and Course Review