I wondered if anyone else is taking the free Coursera online course Control of Mobile Robots by Prof Magnus Egerstedt of Georgia Tech?
The introductory lectures are suitable for able High School students, but as it starts to delve into Linear Systems Theory the math assumes college calculus and linear algebra knowledge.
Unfortunately the timing is not ideal, but typically there are reruns of popular courses and the material continues to be available online.
I took a control systems class as an undergraduate back in the late-80s, but this has been a great way to refresh my memory and I hope will form the basis of some rewarding off-season projects for our team.
This course is starting again at the end of the month (November 2018). I just completed week 1 of the 7 week course. While the lectures are very approachable, the week 1 quiz was 100% differential equation solving. It’s been 25 years since I had to solve a non-trivial integration problem and I resorted to using Wolfram Alpha to test and solve my differential equation solutions. (I’m looking to learn how to program robots, not re-learn differential equations!)
The course can be found at:
So far I’d definitely recommend auditing the video lectures and slides. However, taking it for credit requires some college level math, calculus & differential equations for week 1 at least.
The programming assignments are all optional. They use MathLab and use the Sim.I.Iam robot simulator. I’m looking forward to testing this out.