[Sem I 2025-26] Frontier Topics in Autonomous Systems

Overview

This course will cover frontier topics in “Embodied AI” encompassing AI-based robotics and autonomous systems. At their core, we consider them as AI agents that sense the environment, plan/reason and then execute goal-directed tasks.

Logistics

Announcements

• The rubric for the end term exam is here.
• Major examination answer scripts will be available for viewing on Saturday, 22nd November 2025 from 11:00am till 1:00pm in SIT001.
• The major examination will be on Wednesday, 19th November 2025 from 3:30pm till 5:30pm in SIT001.
• The paper list for second round of paper presentations is here. Format (presentations and reviews) is the same as the first round.
• Guidelines for independent investigation are released. Please see the Assignments section below.
• The next class will be after the midterm break. No lecture class on Thursday 25.09.2025. Please review this article to get a better understanding of Diffusion models. Also, please review this work as an application focusing on the Diffusion model part.
• The paper presentation guideline is up. Please see the paper presentation section. Paper presentations in the week following the mid term break.
• The list of research papers will be uploaded soon. Please select your papers and start reading once the list is available. Lecture material till mid terms is completed. No lectures in the week of September 8th till 11th.
• The mid-term examination will be held on Saturday, September 20th in the 11am till 1pm slot.
• Please join the Piazza class for the course: link (access code will be announced in the class).
• Assignment 1 is released. Please see the assignment section.
• The first class for COL864 will be held next week on Thursday, 31st July, 2025.

Overview

• Contents. The course will be centered around the following four themes: