Air University

Department of Mechatronics Engineering

Path Planning for Robots: HW0 (Introductory Concepts)

Instructions: Submit your homework by the date announced in the lecture. Homework should be in PDF
format not more than 2 pages. File should be named as follows: yournamePPMTS. Any two similar
assignments will both be given zero marks in the total assignment marks for this course.

1. Give an example of a holonomic and a non-holonomic system in robotics.

2. What is the meaning of the following words in the context of robotics and algorithms:
heuristics, adaptive algorithms, deterministic, stochastic, optimization, local and global
optimum, optimal, multi-criteria optimization?
3. Go to the website www.nucleareng.com/people and click on Newton, Euler and
Lagrange and find the difference between Newton’s calculus and Euler-Lagrange’s
variational calculus. How do these concepts apply in optimization and optimality?
4. Go to any tutorial sight for “Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)” (e.g.
http://www.swarmintelligence.org/tutorials.php) and understand the basic features of
some commonly used techniques PSO, ACO and GA.
5. What is the basis of Simulated Annealing in optimization?

ZK2018 Page 1