Bachelor of Science in Robotics Engineering

This course introduces basics of electrical and electronic circuit analysis and design. Students learn how to perform transient and sinusoidal steady-state analysis of RL, RC, and RLC circuits, Norton-Thevenin equivalent representation, learn operational amplifiers. Main concepts shown in class are concretized through practical lab sessions. The British Higher School of Art and Design (BHSAD) is a partner of the University of Hertfordshire (UH) running six validated BA (Hons) programs. Upon successful completion of studies, BHSAD students are eligible to receive academic awards issued by the University of Hertfordshire and identical to those provided for UH graduates. Our students can transfer freely to UH and return back for any semester during their studies.

In this course students study the fundamentals of Laplace transforms and Bode diagrams as they apply to electric circuit analysis, basic operation and application of main electronic components: diodes, bipolar junction and field-effect transistors, operational amplifiers: ideal op-amp, inverting and non-inverting configurations, op-amp circuits focusing on filters. Main concepts shown in class are practiced through hand-on lab sessions on electronic circuit analysis and a course design project.

The course presents and integrates the basic concepts for both continuous-time and discrete time signals and systems. Signal and system representations are developed for both time and frequency domains. These representations are related through the Fourier transform and its generalizations, which are explored in detail. Filtering and filter design, modulation, and sampling for both analog and digital systems are discussed and illustrated. Main concepts shown BSc in Robotics and Mechatronics Page 10 of 14 in class are concretized through labs focusing on different sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, capacitive touch sensors, incremental encoders, potentiometers, microphones, etc. The sensor data will be acquired using data acquisition cards and will be analyzed using MATLAB software.

The course covers both the fundamentals of the logic and computer system design and also the practical aspects of the microcontroller programming. Topics include Boolean algebra, combinational logic circuit design, sequential logic circuit design, computer design basics; instruction set concept, peripherals of microcontrollers. The course includes structured laboratory sessions in C and VHDL programming languages that will help students to develop skills in applying their knowledge to solve digital system design tasks such as a simple traffic control system, SOS signal, and logic circuits. The assignments are typically implemented on Arduino and FPGA/ARM microcontroller boards with using of different type of sensors.

This course focuses on the fundamentals of mechanical design which lays the analytical foundation needed for the design of machine elements. The topics include the fundamentals of mechanical design, materials and processes, solid mechanics, stress, strain and deflections, static and fatigue failure theories and finite elements analysis (FEA). Laboratory sessions of the course teach students basic skills of computer-aided design (CAD) and exposes them to different manufacturing processes with major emphasis on additive and subtractive manufacturing technologies. SolidWorks CAD software is used to introduce 3D solid modeling, assembling, structural analysis and motion simulation of common machine elements, such as shafts, bearings, gears, springs, screws and fasteners. After mastering basic skills of computer-generated design students will engage in the process of 3D printing with plastic and machining with metal. Machining methods that are explained include drilling, cutting, bending, turning, milling, grinding, and basis of CNC machining.

This course is intended to introduce students to concepts and techniques of classical linear system control and to briefly introduce some concepts of modern control and discrete-time. The main goal is to enable students to analyze, design, and synthesize linear control systems by using the root locus and frequency-domain methods based on Bode diagrams. Students will become familiar with analytical methods and will be exposed extensively to the use of computers for analysis and design of control systems.

This course will introduce students with the theoretical and technological foundations of classical and modern electromechanical systems. Particular emphasis will be given to electrical drives and machines that are employed in robotics and automation. Students will gain basic knowledge in electromagnetics and magnetic circuit analysis to predict electromagnetic characteristics of electric machines and permanent magnet materials. Using principles of electromechanical energy conversion they will be able to predict forces and torques in electric machines and to simulate them using MATLAB/Simulink software. For the lab sessions of this class, the students will design and build their own electric drive based on brushless DC motors and apply to it torque, velocity, and position control.

This course covers classical topics in robotics with particular emphasis on the kinematics and dynamics of industrial manipulators. Different kinematics architectures are introduced together with classical modeling techniques based on homogeneous transformations. Alternative methods, such as the fixed and Euler angle conventions, quaternions and the vector-angle representation, are explained to represent the orientation of rigid bodies. Analysis of velocities, static forces, and kinematic singular configurations is carried out by means of differential kinematics. The equations of motion of a manipulator are derived using Newton-Euler and
Lagrange methods. The analytical closed form solution for the inverse dynamic problem is obtained ready to be used as the core block for model-based control techniques and for simulation purposes.

This course brings together elements of design in mechanical, electrical/electronic and control systems so that students will have a good idea of the range of advanced techniques available in developing robotic/mechatronic systems including selection and control of servo and pneumatic/hydraulic actuators, integrating industrial automation tools, thus enhancing theoretical and practical skills acquired in previous courses through theoretical and practical assignments.

This course introduces control and simulation techniques suitable for industrial manipulators and mobile robots. Motion control and trajectories planning are formalized in the joint and task space. Linear and nonlinear control schemes are applied to industrial manipulators and tested with the support of different simulation environments, such as Matlab, VREP and Gazebo. A state-of-the-art operative system for robotics applications (ROS) is introduced. Modern learning techniques are presented to acquire and adapt the inverse kinematic and dynamic model of the robot in order to implement model-based feedback control schemes in the joint and in the Cartesian space.

The course objective is to practice industrial project work within the robotics and mechatronics engineering field. Projects include problem definition, making time schedule, information retrieval, work coordination, problem solving, report writing and oral presentation. Student should demonstrate ability both to apply knowledge acquired earlier in the education and within a project team ability to acquire and apply more knowledge.

Embedded systems control everything from space robot rovers to home electronics. Any system that responds at the pace of relevant events has real-time requirements and constraints whether the timescale is short like the airbag controls for an automobile or longer like the flight scheduling system for an airline. This course introduces underlying scientific and engineering principles behind embedded real-time systems. Students can expect to learn how to program on an embedded architecture and apply real-time principles that are used to drive critical embedded systems like robotics, automobiles, avionics, medical equipment, etc. Topics covered include
embedded architectures; concurrency; real-time principles (multi-tasking, scheduling, synchronization), etc. Through a series of practical exercises with state-of-the-art system-inchip microprocessor boards students will acquire skills of embedded Linux programming using C programming tools and libraries.

The Power Electronics course is designed to introduce switch mode power supplies and power converters (DC/DC, rectifiers and inverters). The introduction section of the course is focused on diode- and thyristor-based half- and full-wave rectification in two- and three-phase configurations. The DC/DC power converters section presents the operation modes and design considerations for the standard switching power supply topologies such as the buck, boost, buck-boost, and flyback DC/DC converters. There is a brief introduction to resonant converter technology. The last section of the course covers power electronics inverters. Standard inverter
topologies are introduced, and various PWM algorithms for them are presented. Power quality issues and closed-loop control schema are presented. Multilevel converter topologies are introduced.

In this course students will get introduced to the concept of industrial automation and programmable logic controllers (PLC). The topics will include: introduction to automation and plants, an overview of the Factory Automation, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), PLC hardware components, PLC programming using Ladder logic, programming timers and counters, PLC installation, networking, Human machine interface (HMI), industrial sensors and actuators, and some advanced topics in industrial automation.
Two main software tools will be introduced and used in the class, to practice developing programs for the PLCs and to work with the real PLCs in the lab. Students will learn different PLC programming languages.

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts, algorithms, methods and tools of digital image processing. The course aims to lay a solid mathematical foundation to further study of concepts in image and video processing, computer vision, image segmentation and understanding. After studying the basics of image formation and human visual system, topic
such as image sampling and quantization, intensity transformations, spatial filtering, filtering in the frequency domain, color image processing, image processing and image segmentation will be covered. Matlab and OPENCV (using Python or C++ programming languages) will be used extensively for projects which aim to provide practical insight into the real-world implementation of image processing techniques.

Robotics and Mechatronics students have an opportunity to complete a credit-bearing internship from the third year onwards. The internship provides a practical problem-solving experience as a bridge between coursework and professional life. A student can take the internship at a company, located either in Kazakhstan or in a foreign country, for a total number of working hours equal to 120 or more. As an alternative, the internship can be taken either in one of the research labs of Nazarbayev University, or at a research lab of a foreign university, for total number of hours equal to 120 or more. In all cases, the internship will be supervised by a faculty member of the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics.

This course introduces the students to the state-of-the-art analytical tools and methods used for machine learning. Topics include (semi) supervised learning, Bayesian decision theory, parametric methods, multivariate methods, dimensionality reduction, design of machine learning experiments, introduction to clustering, nonparametric methods, decision trees, linear discrimination and kernel based methods. The course also contains an integrated final project that gives students hands on experience with practical machine learning algorithms and express those algorithms as computer implementations. MATLAB and C++ and related machine learning libraries and databases will be used extensively.

This course is about the emerging field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). This multidisciplinary research area draws from Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design, Cognitive Psychology and other fields to enable robots to successfully interact with humans. This course is a combination of lectures, discussions, assignments, readings and hands-on workshops on a wide range of topics such as social signal processing, multi-modal communication, natural language interaction, robot-assisted therapy, human perception tools and technologies, smart environments, interaction design for robots, and ethics. During this course, we will discuss how cognitive, social and affective issues apply to interaction design, and how to gather, analyze, and present data for interaction design. In addition, the interaction of HRI techniques are discussed and practiced in a special term project resulting in the implementation of a complete human-robot interaction system. This project may be developed using a robotic platform from NU robotics labs.