Course Report: Control of Mobile Robots

The online course I’ve been working on most rigorously of late [although I’m still one week behind :-( ], is Control of Mobile Robots.

The course is offered via Coursera, and taught by Magnus Egerstedt and his team at Georgia Tech.

I really like this course!

It offers a great introduction to control theory, and hits the right blend of mathematics and applications for me.

We just finished the distinction and relationship between controllability and observability. These are good introductory concepts and they were conveyed at an introductory level, which I think will provide a solid foundation for more advanced courses.

I’ve written previously of my love for Udacity, which has found a great formula for teaching technical courses on its own platform. Coursera has different strengths and weaknesses, and Control of Mobile Robots is a great example of its strengths.

This course is a relatively obscure topic, so Coursera’s partnerships with major universities enable Coursera to bring this course to the world much faster than Udacity’s in-house production model.

Often the cost for this flexibility is that Coursera courses are of uneven quality. But this course has super-high production values, which I think is a result of Georgia Tech’s focus on online education.