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 Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics 141

Peter Corke

Robotics
and
Control
FUNDAMENTAL
ALGORITHMS
IN MATLAB®
Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics

Volume 141

Series Editors
Bruno Siciliano, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e Tecnologie
dell’Informazione, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy
Oussama Khatib, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Computer
Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Advisory Editors
Nancy Amato, Computer Science & Engineering, Texas A&M University,
College Station, TX, USA
Oliver Brock, Fakultät IV, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Herman Bruyninckx, KU Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium
Wolfram Burgard, Institute of Computer Science, University of Freiburg,
Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Raja Chatila, ISIR, Paris cedex 05, France
Francois Chaumette, IRISA/INRIA, Rennes, Ardennes, France
Wan Kyun Chung, Robotics Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering, POSTECH,
Pohang, Korea (Republic of)
Peter Corke, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Paolo Dario, LEM, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy
Alessandro De Luca, DIAGAR, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Italy
Rüdiger Dillmann, Humanoids and Intelligence Systems Lab, KIT - Karlsruher
Institut für Technologie, Karlsruhe, Germany
Ken Goldberg, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
John Hollerbach, School of Computing, University of Utah, Salt Lake, UT, USA
Lydia E. Kavraki, Department of Computer Science, Rice University, Houston,
TX, USA
Vijay Kumar, School of Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Bradley J. Nelson, Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich,
Zürich, Switzerland
Frank Chongwoo Park, Mechanical Engineering Department, Seoul National
University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)
S. E. Salcudean, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Roland Siegwart, LEE J205, ETH Zürich, Institute of Robotics & Autonomous
Systems Lab, Zürich, Switzerland
Gaurav S. Sukhatme, Department of Computer Science, University of Southern
California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
The Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) publish new developments
and advances in the fields of robotics research, rapidly and informally but with a
high quality. The intent is to cover all the technical contents, applications, and
multidisciplinary aspects of robotics, embedded in the fields of Mechanical
Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, Control,
and Life Sciences, as well as the methodologies behind them. Within the scope
of the series are monographs, lecture notes, selected contributions from
specialized conferences and workshops, as well as selected PhD theses.
Special offer: For all clients with a print standing order we offer free access to
the electronic volumes of the Series published in the current year.
Indexed by SCOPUS, DBLP, EI Compendex, zbMATH, SCImago.
All books published in the series are submitted for consideration in Web of
Science.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5208

Peter Corke

Robotics and Control

Fundamental Algorithms in MATLAB®

123
Peter Corke
School of Electrical Engineering
and Robotics
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, QLD, Australia

ISSN 1610-7438 ISSN 1610-742X (electronic)

Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics
ISBN 978-3-030-79178-0 ISBN 978-3-030-79179-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79179-7

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To my family Phillipa, Lucy and Madeline for their indulgence and support;
my parents Margaret and David for kindling my curiosity;
and to Lou Paul who planted the seed that became this book.
Foreword

At the dawn of the century’s third decade, robotics is reaching an elevated level of
maturity and continues to benefit from the advances and innovations in its enabling
technologies. These all are contributing to an unprecedented effort to bringing robots
to human environment in hospitals and homes, factories and schools; in the field for
robots fighting fires, making goods and products, picking fruits and watering the farm-
land, saving time and lives. Robots today hold the promise for making a considerable
impact in a wide range of real-world applications from industrial manufacturing to
healthcare, transportation, and exploration of the deep space and sea. Tomorrow,
robots will become pervasive and touch upon many aspects of modern life.
The Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is devoted to bringing to the
research community the latest advances in the robotics field on the basis of their
significance and quality. Through a wide and timely dissemination of critical research
developments in robotics, our objective with this series is to promote more exchanges
and collaborations among the researchers in the community and contribute to further
advancements in this rapidly growing field.
This is a refined remake of the volume of the second edition of Robotics, Vision and
Control – Fundamental Algorithms in MATLAB® by Peter Corke in 2017. The work
now comes in two split volumes: one devoted to Robotics and Control, and the other
to Robotic Vision. The first volume contains material from the first nine chapters of
the previous single volume, covering: foundations on pose, time, and motion; mobile
robots with navigation and localization; kinematics, dynamics, and control of robot
manipulators. On the other hand, the second volume contains material from the first
two chapters and the tenth to fourteenth chapters of the previous single volume, cov-
ering: foundations on pose, computer vision, image processing and feature extraction;
image formation and multiple images for the geometry of vision.
The outcome is a two-volume handy set which is confirmed to be shining in our
STAR series!

Naples, Italy and Stanford, USA Bruno Siciliano and Oussama Khatib
November 2020 STAR Editors

vii
Foreword
to the Second Edition

Once upon a time, a very thick document of a dissertation from a faraway land came
to me for evaluation. Visual robot control was the thesis theme and Peter Corke was
its author. Here, I am reminded of an excerpt of my comments, which reads, this is a
masterful document, a quality of thesis one would like all of one’s students to strive for,
knowing very few could attain – very well considered and executed.
The connection between robotics and vision has been, for over two decades, the
central thread of Peter Corke’s productive investigations and successful developments
and implementations. This rare experience is bearing fruit in this second edition of his
book on Robotics, Vision, and Control. In its melding of theory and application, this
second edition has considerably benefited from the author’s unique mix of academic
and real-world application influences through his many years of work in robotic min-
ing, flying, underwater, and field robotics.
There have been numerous textbooks in robotics and vision, but few have reached
the level of integration, analysis, dissection, and practical illustrations evidenced in
this book. The discussion is thorough, the narrative is remarkably informative and
accessible, and the overall impression is of a significant contribution for researchers
and future investigators in our field. Most every element that could be considered as
relevant to the task seems to have been analyzed and incorporated, and the effective
use of Toolbox software echoes this thoroughness.
The reader is taken on a realistic walkthrough the fundamentals of mobile robots,
navigation, localization, manipulator-arm kinematics, dynamics, and joint-level con-
trol, as well as camera modeling, image processing, feature extraction, and multi-view
geometry. These areas are finally brought together through extensive discussion of
visual servo system. In the process, the author provides insights into how complex
problems can be decomposed and solved using powerful numerical tools and effec-
tive software.
The Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is devoted to bringing to the
research community the latest advances in the robotics field on the basis of their sig-
nificance and quality. Through a wide and timely dissemination of critical research
developments in robotics, our objective with this series is to promote more exchanges
and collaborations among the researchers in the community and contribute to further
advancements in this rapidly growing field.
Peter Corke brings a great addition to our STAR series with an authoritative book,
reaching across fields, thoughtfully conceived and brilliantly accomplished.

Oussama Khatib
Stanford, California
October 2016

ix
 Preface Tell me and I will forget.
Show me and I will remember.
Involve me and I will understand.
Chinese proverb

Simple things should be simple,

complex things should be possible.
Alan Kay

These are exciting times for robotics and we have seen much recent progress: the rise
of the self-driving car, the Mars science laboratory rover making profound discover-
ies on Mars, the Philae comet landing attempt, and the DARPA Robotics Challenge.
We have witnessed the drone revolution – flying machines that were once the domain
of the aerospace giants can now be bought for just tens of dollars. All this has been
powered by the continuous and relentless improvement in computer power and tre-
mendous advances in low-cost inertial sensors – driven largely by consumer demand
for better mobile phones and gaming experiences. It’s getting easier for individuals
to create robots – 3D printing is now very affordable, the Robot Operating System
(ROS) is both capable and widely used, and powerful hobby technologies such as
the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Dynamixel servo motors and Lego’s EV3 brick are avail-
able at low cost. This in turn has contributed to the rapid growth of the global maker
community – ordinary people creating at home what would once have been done by
a major corporation. We have also witnessed an explosion of commercial interest in
robotics – many startups and a lot of acquisitions by big players in the field. Robotics
even featured on the front cover of the Economist magazine in 2014!
So how does a robot work? Robots are data-driven machines. They acquire data,
process it and take action based on it. The data comes from sensors measuring the ve-
locity of a wheel, the angle of a robot arm’s joint or the intensities of millions of pixels
that comprise an image of the world that the robot is observing. For many robotic ap-
plications the amount of data that needs to be processed, in real-time, is massive. For
a vision sensor it can be of the order of tens to hundreds of megabytes per second.
Progress in robots has been, and continues to be, driven by more effective ways
to process data. This is achieved through new and more efficient algorithms, and the
“Computers in the future may weigh no dramatic increase in computational power that follows Moore’s law.
When I started
more than 1.5 tons.” Popular Mechanics, in robotics and vision in the mid 1980s, see Fig. 0.1, the IBM PC had been recently re-
forecasting the relentless march of sci-
leased – it had a 4.77 MHz 16-bit microprocessor and 16 kbytes (expandable to 256 k)
ence, 1949
of memory. Over the intervening 30+ years computing power has perhaps doubled
20 times which is an increase by a factor of one million.
Over the fairly recent history of robotics a very large body of algorithms has been
developed to efficiently solve large-scale problems in perception, planning, control
and localization – a significant, tangible, and collective achievement of the research
community. However its sheer size and complexity presents a very real barrier to
somebody new entering the field. Given so many algorithms from which to choose, a
real and important question is:

What is the right algorithm for this particular problem?

One strategy would be to try a few different algorithms and see which works best
for the problem at hand, but this is not trivial and leads to the next question:

How can I evaluate algorithm X on my own data without spending days coding and
debugging it from the original research papers?

xi
xii Preface

Fig. 0.1.
Once upon a time a lot of equip-
ment was needed to do vision-
based robot control. The author
with a large rack full of real-time
image processing and robot
control equipment (1992)

Two developments come to our aid. The first is the availability of general purpose
mathematical software which makes it easy to prototype algorithms. There are com-
mercial packages such as MATLAB®, Mathematica®, Maple® and MathCad®, as well Respectively the trademarks of The Math-
as open source projects include SciLab, Octave, and Matplotlib. All these tools deal Works Inc., Wolfram Research, MapleSoft
and PTC.
naturally and effortlessly with vectors and matrices, can create complex and beauti-
ful graphics, and can be used interactively or as a programming environment. The
second is the open-source movement. Many algorithms developed by researchers are
available in open-source form. They might be coded in one of the general purpose
mathematical languages just mentioned, or written in a mainstream language like C,
C++, Java or Python.
For more than twenty years I have been part of the open-source community and
maintained two open-source MATLAB Toolboxes that date back to my own Ph.D. work
and have evolved since then, growing features and tracking changes to the MATLAB
language. One of these, the Robotics Toolbox has been translated into a number of
different languages such as Python, SciLab and LabView and more recently some of
its functionality is finding its way into the MATLAB Robotics System Toolbox™ pub-
lished by The MathWorks. It forms the basis of this book.
These Toolboxes have some important virtues. Firstly, they have been around for
a long time and used by many people for many different problems so the code can be
accorded some level of trust. New algorithms, or even the same algorithms coded in
new languages or executing in new environments, can be compared against imple-
mentations in the Toolbox.

» allow the user to work with real problems,

not just trivial examples
Secondly, they allow the user to work with real problems, not just trivial examples.
For real robots, those with more than two links, the computation required is beyond
unaided human ability. Thirdly, they allow us to gain insight which can otherwise get
lost in the complexity. We can rapidly and easily experiment, play what if games, and
depict the results graphically using the powerful 2D and 3D graphical display tools of
MATLAB. Fourthly, the Toolbox code makes many common algorithms tangible and
accessible. You can read the code, you can apply it to your own problems, and you can
extend it or rewrite it. It gives you a “leg up” as you begin your journey into robotics.

» a narrative that covers robotics and computer vision

– both separately and together
 Preface xiii

This book takes a conversational approach, weaving text, mathematics and code
examples into a narrative. I want to show how complex problems can be decomposed
and solved using just a few simple lines of code. More formally this is an inductive
learning approach, going from specific and concrete examples to the more general.

» consider it a grand tasting menu

The topics covered in this book are based on my own interests but also guided by
real problems that I observed over many years as a practitioner of both robotics and
computer vision. I want to give the reader a flavor of what robotics is about and what
it can do – consider it a grand tasting menu. I hope that by the end of this book you
will share my enthusiasm for these topics.

» software is a first-class citizen in this book

This book is unlike other text books, and deliberately so. Firstly, software is a
first-class citizen in this book. Software is a tangible instantiation of the algorithms
described – it can be read and it can be pulled apart, modified and put back together
again. There are a number of classic books that use software in an illustrative fashion
and which have influenced my approach, for example LaTeX: A document prepara-
tion system (Lamport 1994), Numerical Recipes in C (Press et al. 2007), The Little
Lisper (Friedman et al. 1987) and Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
(Sussman et al. 2001). Over 600 examples in this book illustrate how the Toolbox
software can be used and generally provide instant gratification in just a couple of
lines of MATLAB code.

» instant gratification in just a couple of lines

of MATLAB code
Secondly, building the book around MATLAB and the Toolboxes means that we are
able to tackle more realistic and more complex problems than other books.

» this book provides a complementary approach

The emphasis on software and examples does not mean that rigor and theory are
unimportant – they are very important, but this book provides a complementary ap-
proach. It is best read in conjunction with standard texts which do offer rigor and
theoretical nourishment. The end of each chapter has a section on further reading
and provides pointers to relevant textbooks and key papers. I try hard to use the least
amount of mathematical notation required, if you seek deep mathematical rigor this
may not be the book for you.
The Toolboxes also include some great open-source software and I am grateful to the
following for code that has been incorporated into the Robotics Toolbox: mobile robot
localization and mapping by Paul Newman; a quadrotor simulator by Pauline Pounds;
a Symbolic Manipulator Toolbox by Jörn Malzahn; pose-graph SLAM code by Giorgio
Grisetti and 3D robot models from the ARTE Robotics Toolbox by Arturo Gil.
As I wrote I became fascinated by the mathematicians, scientists and engineers
whose work, hundreds of years ago, underpins the science of robotics today. Some of
their names have become adjectives like Coriolis, Gaussian, or Cartesian; nouns like
Jacobian, or units like Newton and Coulomb. They are interesting characters from a
distant era when science was a hobby and their day jobs were as doctors, alchemists,
gamblers, astrologers, philosophers or mercenaries. In order to know whose shoulders
we are standing on, I have included small vignettes about the lives of some of these
people – a smattering of history as a backstory.
xiv Preface

In my own career I have had the good fortune to work with many wonderful peo-
ple who have inspired and guided me. Long ago at the University of Melbourne John
Anderson fired my interest in control and Graham Holmes tried with mixed suc-
cess to have me “think before I code”. Early on, I spent a life-direction-changing ten
months working with Richard (Lou) Paul in the GRASP laboratory at the University
of Pennsylvania in the period 1988–1989. The genesis of the Toolboxes was my Ph.D.
research (1991–1994) and my advisors Malcolm Good (University of Melbourne) and
Paul Dunn (CSIRO) asked me good questions and guided my research. Laszlo Nemes
(CSIRO) provided great wisdom about life and the ways of organizations, and encour-
aged me to publish and to open-source my software. Much of my career was spent at
CSIRO where I had the privilege and opportunity to work on a diverse range of real
robotics projects and to work with a truly talented set of colleagues and friends. Part
way through writing the first edition I joined the Queensland University of Technology
which made time available to complete that work, and in 2015 sabbatical leave to com-
plete the second.
Many people have helped me in my endeavor and I thank them. I was generously
hosted for periods of productive writing at Oxford (both editions) by Paul Newman,
and at MIT (first edition) by Daniela Rus. Daniela, Paul and Cédric Pradalier made
constructive suggestions and comments on early drafts of that edition. For the second
edition I was helped by comments on draft chapters by: Tim Barfoot, Dmitry Bratanov,
Duncan Campbell, Donald Dansereau, Tom Drummond, Malcolm Good, Peter Kujala,
Obadiah Lam, Jörn Malzahn, Felipe Nascimento Martins, Ajay Pandey, Cédric Pradalier,
Dan Richards, Daniela Rus, Sareh Shirazi, Surya Singh, Ryan Smith, Ben Talbot, Dorian
Tsai and Ben Upcroft; and assisted with wisdom and content by: François Chaumette,
Donald Dansereau, Kevin Lynch, Robert Mahony and Frank Park.
I have tried my hardest to eliminate errors but inevitably some will remain. Please
email bug reports to me at [email protected] as well as suggestions for improve-
ments and extensions.
Writing the second edition was financially supported by EPSRC Platform Grant
EP/M019918/1, QUT Science & Engineering Faculty sabbatical grant, QUT Vice Chancellor’s
Excellence Award 2015, QUT Robotics and Autonomous Systems discipline and the
ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision (grant CE140100016).
Over both editions I have enjoyed wonderful support from MathWorks, through
their author program, and from Springer. My editor Thomas Ditzinger has been a great
supporter of this project and Armin Stasch, with enormous patience and dedication in
layout and typesetting, has transformed my untidy ideas into a thing of beauty.
Finally, my deepest thanks are to Phillipa who has supported me and “the book”
with grace and patience for a very long time and in many different places – without
her this book could never have been written.

Peter Corke
Brisbane,
Queensland
March 2019
 Preface xv

Note on the Second Edition

The revision principle was to keep the good (narrative style, code as a first-class citi-
zen, soft plastic cover) and eliminate the bad (errors and missing topics). There were
more errors than I would have liked and I thank everybody who submitted errata and
suggested improvements.
New content includes matrix exponential notation; the basics of screw theory and
Lie algebra; inertial navigation; differential steer and omnidirectional mobile robots; a
deeper treatment of SLAM systems including scan matching and pose graphs; greater
use of MATLAB computer algebra; operational space control; deeper treatment of ma-
nipulator dynamics and control; visual SLAM and visual odometry; structured light;
bundle adjustment; and light-field cameras.
In the first edition I shied away from Lie algebra, matrix exponentials and twists
but I think it’s important to cover them. The topic is deeply mathematical and I’ve
tried to steer a middle ground between hardcore algebraic topology and the homog-
enous transformation only approach of most other texts, while also staying true to the
overall approach of this book.
All MATLAB generated figures have been regenerated to reflect recent improve-
ments to MATLAB graphics and all code examples have been updated as required and
tested, and are available as MATLAB Live Scripts.
The second edition of the book is matched by new major releases of my Toolboxes:
Robotics Toolbox (release 10) and the Machine Vision Toolbox (release 4). These newer
versions of the toolboxes have some minor incompatibilities with previous releases of the
toolboxes, and therefore also with the code examples in the first edition of the book.

Note on this Edition

This book is essentially the first nine chapters of the second edition of Robotics, Vision
& Control with all known errata incorporated. It omits all content related to computer
vision and vision-based control.
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Robots, Jobs and Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2 About the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.1 MATLAB Software and the Toolboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.2 Notation, Conventions and Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.3 Audience and Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.4 Learning with the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.5 Teaching with the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.6 Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Part I Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 Representing Position and Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 Working in Two Dimensions (2D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.1 Orientation in 2-Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.2 Pose in 2-Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2 Working in Three Dimensions (3D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.2.1 Orientation in 3-Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2.2 Pose in 3-Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3 Advanced Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.3.1 Normalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.3.2 Understanding the Exponential Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.3.3 More About Twists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.3.4 Dual Quaternions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.3.5 Configuration Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.4 Using the Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.5 Wrapping Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

3 Time and Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

3.1 Time-Varying Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.1.1 Derivative of Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.1.2 Transforming Spatial Velocities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.1.3 Incremental Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.1.4 Incremental Rigid-Body Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.2 Accelerating Bodies and Reference Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.2.1 Dynamics of Moving Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.2.2 Transforming Forces and Torques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.2.3 Inertial Reference Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.3 Creating Time-Varying Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.3.1 Smooth One-Dimensional Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

xvii
xviii Contents

3.3.2 Multi-Dimensional Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

3.3.3 Multi-Segment Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.3.4 Interpolation of Orientation in 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.3.5 Cartesian Motion in 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.4 Application: Inertial Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.4.1 Gyroscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.4.2 Accelerometers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.4.3 Magnetometers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.4.4 Sensor Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.5 Wrapping Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Part II Mobile Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

4 Mobile Robot Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.1 Wheeled Mobile Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.1.1 Car-Like Mobile Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.1.2 Differentially-Steered Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.1.3 Omnidirectional Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.2 Flying Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.3 Advanced Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.3.1 Nonholonomic
and Under-Actuated Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.4 Wrapping Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Toolbox and MATLAB Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

5 Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.1 Reactive Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.1.1 Braitenberg Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.1.2 Simple Automata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.2 Map-Based Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.2.1 Distance Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.2.2 D* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.2.3 Introduction to Roadmap Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
5.2.4 Probabilistic Roadmap Method (PRM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.2.5 Lattice Planner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.2.6 Rapidly-Exploring Random Tree (RRT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
5.3 Wrapping Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
MATLAB Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

6 Localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

6.1 Dead Reckoning . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
6.1.1 Modeling the Vehicle .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
6.1.2 Estimating Pose . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
6.2 Localizing with a Map . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
6.3 Creating a Map . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.4 Localization and Mapping . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
6.5 Rao-Blackwellized SLAM . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
6.6 Pose Graph SLAM . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Other documents randomly have
different content
and went to bed. Although I was very unhappy, I fell asleep almost
immediately. In brooding over my own affairs, I quite lost sight of the
anxiety my absence might cause my parents. Self-centred people
never feel for others.
After breakfast in the morning I paid my little bill. It took nearly
every cent I had. So much the better; tramps never had money; they
begged and stole, and I was a tramp.
Again I followed the river, sometimes on the road, and sometimes
on the shore. I really got along very well. Farm houses were plentiful
and people were kind. All I had to do was to present myself, and I
was fed, both by French and English. The people I met were mostly
French.
After roaming thus for two days and a half, my feet became very
sore, particularly my right foot, which had accumulated a beautiful
blister on the side of my heel as large as a half-dollar. I had no idea
my feet were so tender and that a mere blister on the heel could
make itself so keenly felt. I began to be suspicious that one needed
training to be a tramp.
It was the morning of the fourth day of vagrancy. I had slept in a
barn on the outskirts of a small village. I rose and limped to the
village, and sitting down in a tiny railroad station, took off my right
boot, and nursed my poor foot in my lap. While I sat thus a kind-
faced young chap came in and noticing me looked me over very
deliberately. I must have looked very miserable and woe-begone.
After a short scrutiny he went away, but returned in a few minutes
and sat down near me. He smoked his pipe in silence for a while.
Then he said, “Sore foot?”
I nodded my head. He smoked two minutes, then turned again to
me with, “Hungry?”
I was shocked. Had I really come to look hungry and like a
creature in want already? Evidently I had. I admitted that I could eat.
The kindly-looking young man was the station agent I learned later.
He lived in the station with a young wife and one child. When he
learned that I was hungry he went to that half of the building which
was his home, and in a little while his child brought me nice bread
and butter and a small jug of milk. This offering deeply touched me.
The delicate thoughtfulness of the station agent is something I shall
never forget. After I had eaten he appeared again and sat down
smoking silently. He was a man of understanding, but not talkative.
“Been out on a spree?” he asked.
“Well,” I replied, “I suppose you could call it one kind of a spree.”
“Going home?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Come from Montreal, I suppose,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied.
Whereupon he left me once more to return nearly immediately and
hand me a small object. It was a first-class ticket to Montreal.
“Go on home now,” he said. “Train will be along in twenty-five
minutes.” He would have left me again without waiting for my thanks,
but I stopped him and insisted on his listening to my very simple
experience and accepting my card. He was mightily amused at a
tramp having a visiting-card. He certainly was an understanding
young man, only a few years older than I was, but he knew the
world, and understood many things that were to cost me much in the
learning.
The price of my railroad ticket was eighty-five cents. I had been a
tramp for nearly four days, and had only walked a distance equal to
eighty-five cents in railroad travel, and thereby had acquired a foot
not fit to bear my weight without excruciating pain. I concluded that I
was not cut out for a tramp. I was cured, and had forgotten the pain
of being plucked. My friend, the station agent, knew me quite well
before my train came.
When I arrived home, lame, tired and dirty, I was surprised to
discover that the anxious one had been my father. He had had
detectives searching for me in every place where I was not.
 “I knew you were not far off and would come back soon,” said my
mother.
“John, I’m afraid you are a damned fool,” said my father, and he
kissed me affectionately.
I understood later the full significance of this adventure—I had
tried to run away from myself—the only fellow from whom you
cannot run. No word was said of my having been plucked.
The summer passed as summers will to those at an age when
they do not realise how short a man’s time really is. I read a good
deal and studied in a half-hearted way; rode, fished, and spent some
weeks in the woods. The fall soon came and I went back to M’Gill to
take my first year for the second time.
I believe that second “first year” was of more real value to me than
any other. I think I was the only chap who took the first year twice,
except one, Bury, who was a chronic freshman. He had already been
a freshman for several years and never was anything else. But he is
to-day general passenger agent of one of the largest railroads in the
world, while I am an automaton.
Taking a survey of all the college men I know, and have known, I
cannot be sure that the addition of a college education makes much
difference in the end. The man who succeeds with a college degree
would have succeeded without it. It is personality that counts.
Character rules the world, be it educated at college or in the gutter.
I passed into my second year in the following spring, and then in
turn from sophomore to third year without distinction, without
disgrace or notable incident. I learned to smoke and began to shave,
and believed myself to be a thoroughly sophisticated youth.
I loved many girls during my college years; how many it is
impossible to state. I always loved a girl for some special feature;
because she had red hair, or for her eyes, or her nose, or her mouth.
I loved one because she limped a little and I was sorry for her, and
liked the brave way she pretended to be unaware of her deformity. I
loved a woman much older than myself, for several days, just
because she smelled so good. In imagination I can still smell that
sachet powder. I never loved a woman altogether, faults and all, just
because she appealed to me in every sense, but always for some
special feature or peculiarity. I was fickle, for of course one must
soon weary of loving a woman because of a single detail.
My first love, after “Little Blockhead,” was red haired. I met her at a
masquerade during my second freshman year. She was masked, but
I saw her hair; that was enough; I was gone. I was presented to her.
When she unmasked, she discovered a very ordinary countenance,
and she had a distinct cast in one eye. These things made no
difference to me; I worshipped her hair, and loved her devotedly for
at least six weeks.
In the winter of my sophomore year I was trapped for all time—
caught to my undoing in one way, and to my making in a hundred
ways.
Paul de la Croix talked beautifully of love in two languages—
French and English. He was a past-master in the æsthetic realisation
and description of love, although I do not believe he ever really loved
any one but himself. He was very artistic, and uncommon looking, for
which reasons the women loved him, and his family adored him.
Music was his chosen career; an easy career for the pampered son
of a wealthy, common, luxury-loving father. All his love affairs were
confided to me. Most of them were interesting enough, but not
striking, except the last one I was ever called upon to listen to.
For about the hundred and first time he was loved: this time, he
declared, by the most wonderful creature, the belle of the city’s haut
ton; the beautiful, witty and accomplished daughter of Montreal’s
most celebrated physician. I had seen the doctor often, but had
never met the daughter. I was not one of her set. I had no taste in
the direction of teas, dances, box-parties, or other social functions.
Society in my youth drew the line a little more strictly than it is drawn
now. Fathers like Doctor Joseph, and mothers like Mrs. Joseph,
wanted to know something about every one with whom their sons
and daughters associated. Professional gentlemen of the law and
medicine held themselves a peg above mere business men, or
brokers in a small way. In a world now gone crazy with commerce,
medicine, law, even the Church, have become so commercialised
that they have come down a bit socially, and “all-important” Business
has moved up the social scale, and now rubs shoulders with those of
the most exclusive circles. The man of business, who regards money
as his sole aim, is much more one-sided and undeveloped than he
whose end is knowledge of a science or art, for every science and
every art is more or less connected with everything. Consequently,
the business man cannot be veneered with the veneer of society, but
he can be very decently varnished. There is a huge difference
between veneer and varnish.
I had never been within the charmed orbit of Miss Muriel Joseph’s
soaring. Paul was different. He had large means, he was a singer, a
dancer, a ladies’ man with an irreproachable veneer bought for him
by a poorly varnished father. He was loved by Muriel Joseph; and he
raved to me about her hair, her cheek, her hand, the mole upon her
lip, her skin, which was pale and clear, and eyes which were large,
full, liquid and inquiring like those of a deer.
I listened and listened to weeks of this stuff. He did it very well. I
was told the things she said and had described to me the way she
said them till Paul had me half in love with her before I had seen her.
Paul was eloquent and I was impressionable; but I did not disclose to
him what was in my mind. In fact, I was not very clear as to what was
in my mind at the time. All these things I retailed to John, who did not
like Paul, and had seldom met him. It was arranged that I should
meet Paul’s love.
“Ah, but she will be delighted to meet my chum,” said Paul; “I have
talked to her so often of you. If you will call with me there on Sunday,
you will be invited to her birthday dance.”
I was somewhat disconcerted, for I could not dance, and I
abominated ceremonious calls. Now I regretted the opportunities I
had thrown away, when driven weekly to the dancing-class of the
dandy Italian signor who polished the young of that time. At the
dancing-class I had balked and sulked, and never learned a step. It
followed that I was awkward and clumsy on a waxed floor; felt out of
place in pumps; and hated taking a girl in my arms before every one.
How I wished now that I could dance! I was tall, slim and graceful
enough while walking, riding, skating or driving. But dancing was
beyond me, although John, who was a beautiful dancer, had often
urged me to learn the art. Numberless evenings I had played on the
piano alone, or as accompanist for flute or violin, for others to dance,
and I had enjoyed it so far without any ambition to take part in it.
Lovely young things had tormented me to let them teach me; it was
all of no use. Behind all the mixed feelings it excited, I really believe
there lurked a strong desire to dance and be frivolous; but some
want, mental or physical, withheld me.
Anyhow, here I was to meet a woman whom I was prepared to
love before seeing her. I was to meet her and be invited to her
dance, and I could not dance, and would be forced to admit it as if I
had been brought up on a farm. It was galling.
 CHAPTER VII

Paul and I made our call one fine Sunday afternoon. The Josephs
were French people, who were not entirely Anglicised, and they
received every Sunday.
My first impression of Muriel was a disappointment. She was a
striking, unusual type, most attractive in her way; but at first she
failed to realise the mental picture I had drawn of her; and did not
strike me as I had expected she would. After too keen an anticipation
of pleasure, the actual realisation is often a disappointment. Muriel,
as I remember her the first time we met, was a most uncommon
looking girl. Although small, she would have been remarked
anywhere for the wonder of her eyes and colour. They were large,
round, wide-open, prominent; and of a brownness and brilliance
most rare. These wonderful eyes were set wide apart, and when she
looked at you a leading question was put to your very soul. Evil-
minded persons were always disconcerted by a look from Muriel, a
thief or a liar, I am sure, never looked her in the eye. To say that her
colour was a pale, transparent white is only an attempt to describe
what was a curious and amazingly beautiful phenomenon. Her skin
was the whitest thing I ever saw; it was like semi-transparent light;
new-fallen, downy snow; and when she smiled a deep dimple
appeared in one cheek and produced a dark shadow. Nobility sat
upon her brow and a most human kindness was promised by her
lips. Her hair was a dark, red-brown, showing many shades. Her
manner was frank and easy, but behind it a keen observer could
detect a sort of disdain for things in general, including humanity.
When I say I was disappointed in her, it is hardly an adequate
expression of my feelings—hopelessness—more truly expresses it
than disappointment. She had a ready wit, and could make one
perfectly at ease or glad to escape from her presence.
“Well, Jack, what do you think of her?” asked Paul, as we walked
home after our call.
 “So, so,” I replied. “She is nice, she is bright, she is uncommon,
but——”
“Ah, but, of course, but,” exclaimed Paul. “You cannot know in a
look; you cannot feel all the charm of a unique personality in a few
minutes spent in a drawing-room full of people. And then she is
young—only sixteen.”
“She looks twenty,” I said.
“Of course she does to a simpleton like you, who does not
understand girls who have been about. She is the loved and spoiled
child of a great man, who knows everything except how to bring up
his numerous family. She has been abroad, she is out in society, and
intends to stay out. She does what she likes, a woman of the world,
and refuses to go back to a convent where, some may think, she
should be.”
“These things make a difference, I suppose,” I said. “But look at
her father. The doctor is an old man. She must be over twenty.”
“I have no patience with you,” said Paul. “She looks twenty
because she is wonderful. You are blind. You cannot see. It is
because her father is an old man that she is so spoiled and so
wonderful. Doctor Joseph is twenty years older than his wife and
consequently Muriel is precocious.”
“Doctor Joseph is about a thousand years older than his wife in
brains,” I said, laughing. “I do not fancy Mrs. Joseph. She is a hard
woman.”
Thus we discussed people who looked upon us as the silly
goslings that we certainly were—fluffy, callow birds, not half-fledged.
The eve of the dance arrived at last. I thought it never would
come, and half-hoped it would not, or that I had not been invited. I
wished to get it over. I hated to go, yet could not stay away.
I wore my first evening clothes that night. I had only worn them a
very few times before and knew exactly how green and gawky I was.
I feared that my shyness and simplicity would make her smile, which
did not increase my confidence in myself.
 I went to the dance in a high fever and when she greeted me I
blushed. She looked at me with kind eyes—eyes that understood.
How I love people who understand and can let you know without
words. The understanding eye is one thing, the knowing eye is
another. Muriel had the former, with no gleam of the latter.
We call the mounting of a jewel a setting, and the word “setting”
seems to me the only fitting word to use regarding Muriel’s dress, it
so completed her. She was set in a severely plain but beautiful gown
of bluish or purplish gauzy brocaded stuff which appeared to me
more like an artistic drapery than a mere woman’s dress. I know the
tint intensified her pallor. I noticed this time, too, that a delicate pink
flush flitted beneath her skin when she became animated. This
colour was not a blush and could hardly be called colour; it was the
shadow of a shade of pink which came and went like magic. She
was entirely without ornament of any kind except a small diamond
star she wore in her hair, which was done plainly, a large artistic knot
resting low down upon the nape of her neck.
I knew, after the dance, that everything Paul had said of Muriel
was true. It was even far short of the truth. There were many, many
things which he had not said of her, that I could have told him, for, of
course, I saw everything—everything that was there, along with
many attributes that were not there. I was in love with a woman, not
this time with the detail of a woman, but with every dear part of her. I
believe she saw it at once. I was a new experience to her. Her men
friends and admirers had all been of the sophisticated world. I had
the charm of freshness for her. I was frank, I blushed easily and
frequently, I could not dance—really I was a most rare and
uncommon boy.
My admiration must have been very apparent. Paul saw it and did
not resent it. He thought it was only admiration. He could not imagine
such audacity in me as love for the incomparable Muriel. Even if he
could have imagined it, he would have laughed the idea to scorn; for
did not Muriel know him, admire him, love him? Did he not dance
with grace and sing to command admiration?
 “Jack Wesblock? Bah! A mere gawk!” he would have said, without
hesitation.
I did not confide to Paul the actual condition of my mind in regard
to Muriel, in fact I was hardly ingenuous. I could not be, as I was
sure he would not have understood. I confided in John, who took me
seriously, and we sat several sessions late into the night on the
subject.
I made my party call at the Joseph house, alone, one Sunday. I
was very nervous going alone, but could not bear to go with Paul. I
was received as dozens of others, made my share of polite remarks,
drank tea and retired in good order, after being asked to call again by
Muriel. This invitation was not seconded by Mrs. Joseph, who had a
way of looking down on a tall man which was very remarkable in a
short woman.
Things happened during this, my last year at college, in such quick
succession that it is nearly impossible to set them down in any kind
of order. It passed as no year has passed before or since. I met
Muriel frequently at the Skating Rink. She did not skate, but the rink
was the regular winter rendezvous of hundreds of young people,
skaters and non-skaters, who met and chatted, and flirted and had
tea. Skating was a secondary thing with many, and it became so with
me.
I became a regular visitor at the Joseph house, and formed a
friendship with the Doctor, who liked young people. My talent for
mimicry and comic songs amused the old man, and I became
perfectly at home with him. He enjoyed yarns with a point, and I
industriously worked to provide him with well-told whimsical and
amusing tales. Also I wanted to know things, and had always many
questions to put to him, which he always seemed happy to answer.
Thereby I acquired many useful bits of knowledge in various
directions.
My cultivation of the Doctor was not premeditated cunning, for in
fact I was strongly drawn to him. Many evenings I spent most of the
time with him, not with Muriel. I preferred that to being forced to take
my share of her amongst a crowd of young chaps, and Paul always
at her side.
Mrs. Joseph disliked me at sight, and her hawk-like eye watched
me. She knew I was in love with Muriel long before any one else was
aware of it. She thought my cultivation of the Doctor was cunning,
and knew I was dangerous.
The few opportunities that came to me of seeing Muriel alone, I
made the most of in my own way, and she knew my mind long
before I blurted out the truth, which happened one moonlit night,
when we were returning from a tobogganing party. She was not coy
or coquettish, but frankly admitted that her love was mine.
“But what of Paul?” I asked her.
“Paul?” she exclaimed laughing. “Why Paul, any more than one of
the others?”
“Because he loves you, and you have loved him,” I answered. “Did
you not tell him so?”
“Love Paul!” said Muriel. “It is too ridiculous. I never loved him. Not
a word of love has ever passed between us.”
I was so hurt I could not speak. Either Paul had woefully lied, or
Muriel was deceiving me or trying to. I hated to entertain either
thought. I was silent.
“What is the matter, Jack?” asked Muriel. “One of the things I have
admired in you is that you were not small. I knew you loved me long
ago, and I loved you, and particularly admired you because you left
me so free with other men. Surely I have not been mistaken? You
are not jealous of Paul?”
“If you love me, Muriel, it is enough; I am satisfied; but Paul is my
friend, and he has told me things that are evidently not so.”
“Oh, Jack,” exclaimed Muriel, “about me? What has he said? Tell
me.”
“That you loved him. That you slept with his picture under your
pillow. That you wrote him letters daily, although you saw him so
frequently, and that for months you have bullied him and made him
toe the line of your wishes.”
Muriel was at first very much inclined to be angry, but changed her
mind and decided to be amused.
“Paul must have been telling you his dreams,” she said, and
laughed. “There is not one word of truth in these things you tell me.
Paul and I have only been chums. I like him and enjoy his music, but
love there has never been between us, believe me!”
“I do believe you,” I said, “I am glad to believe you, but can you
explain why Paul should lie so tremendously?”
“You do not understand Paul,” said Muriel. “He is just a poetic and
shallow thing. I do not believe he ever made love to a girl in his life.
He has told me of many of his conquests, which I see now could
never have happened. You must allow me the pleasure of telling him
how matters are between you and me.”
So Paul was disposed of. He never forgave me, and said I had
cruelly and treacherously robbed him of his love. As it pleased him to
think so, I never enlightened him. During this year I grew in many
directions. I was a man engaged to be married. My growth, in what is
known as common sense, was slow. The great thing was that Muriel
loved me and I loved her. That seemed to me to be everything;
nothing else mattered.
My studies were neglected and a wild year passed in dances,
theatre parties, musical orgies, drives, skating and every kind of
pleasure which makes time of so little value to the young.
Muriel was a pleasing combination of wisdom and foolishness.
She had a tremendous influence upon me, which she might have
used wisely. What we both knew together would not have covered
any great area to any considerable depth. We were young, spoiled,
thoughtless, shallow. She appeared far more sophisticated than I
did, which was produced by her absolute confidence in herself, an
element sadly wanting in me.
And now I took to herding with the wild boys at college, and
thereby fell considerably in my own estimation. I did not drink, but I
became familiar with those ladies of the demi-monde who lived for
and by students of a type. I was shocked in my better self, but lacked
control.
These days were full of failings to live up to my own standard. I fell
and repented, and fell again. Periods came regularly upon me when
I had to cut loose, and go back to first principles. The painted siren
called me and I went. It seems nearly like a sacrilege to mention
these things while telling of my love for the woman who became my
wife, but it is not. My love for Muriel was at once the cause of my
falling and the reason of my being able to go through a difficult
period without much harm. My love was one thing, the call of my
body coming late into health and strength was another thing quite
apart, and I treated them as such. I was not really brutal or a roué,
but was cutting my wisdom teeth a little later than most boys.
We foolishly and unwisely despise the demi-mondaine, and
hypocritically pretend that she is altogether vile, shutting our eyes to
the plain truth that she is much more a part of our system than the
nun. Or we refuse to admit her existence altogether. We make her,
and we are responsible for her. She is a necessary part of things
sexual. The churches are responsible for the hypocritical attitude
towards this unfortunate type. Religions always go to extremes. Time
was when the prostitute was a sacred person, consecrated to the
gods. Now we go to the other extreme and make her an outcast, and
consecrate her to the devil.
Jess was a celebrity among college students of my time. She was
young, beautiful and witty. She was well-educated and talented, and
a woman of a high type in some respects. If the word can be used
towards a woman of her profession, she was even modest. I admired
Jess while I loved Muriel. I was much ashamed of this affair at the
time, but see it with very different eyes now. I was of a very pliant
character, and my life, like most lives, followed the path of least
resistance. It was easier to make Jess part of my life than to resist
her.
How Jess came to be what she was need be no part of this tale.
Hers was a free life. Although still a young woman, her experience of
the world had been wide, and had made her very wise. She was four
years older than I, and she looked upon me nearly as a naughty
child, and was sorry for me. While our intimacy may not perhaps be
considered nice, it was an eminently useful one to me. She was a
tower of strength to me, saved me from much harm, and enlightened
me on many vital things of which I was wholly ignorant. She was one
of the curious anomalies of human society in this country, a refined
and cultured demi-mondaine.
Considering the debit and credit between good and evil, of my few
months’ experience with Jess, I see the balance was on the side of
good.
I do not pretend that such things are defensible or ever have been,
but say what you will and do what you may, young men will give way
to animal spirits till the millenium. Woman in some respects presents
an exceedingly serious problem in connection with college life. The
matter cannot be met with “thou shalt not” or the ordinary moral
punishments. All that can be safely done is to warn the young in a
fatherly and kindly manner of the real dangers of the way; after that,
the issue rests with the individual. Some come through the fires
refined and sublimated, better fitted for larger usefulness in every
way, others are scorched and warped; the weak are utterly
destroyed. As for myself, I came to no particular harm. This was due,
no doubt, to my natural disposition.
A professional man of strong opinions and with the courage of his
convictions married Jess, and very nearly succeeded in forcing her
on his social set, but she died nine months after her marriage day
while the fight was still going on. Had she lived she would probably
have been stoned. To me she is a very pleasant memory; a very
unfortunate woman with a great character.
It seems to me that a great deal of our boasted virtue is nothing
but very dangerous ignorance. Many marriages turn out very
unhappily for no cause but the want of necessary knowledge of the
affairs of sex. If men entered the state of marriage in the condition of
blind ignorance in which most women enter, there would be a far
greater percentage of unhappy marriages than there are.
 I was cast for one of the end men in a large amateur minstrel show
this winter. Muriel was greatly pleased, and was sure my comic
songs would make a great hit. I bought a beautiful tambourine and
thumped it diligently in the cellar daily. But alas! After three
rehearsals I was asked to resign my chair to a fellow who had the
nerve I lacked. I was quite confident that I could do it, and have done
it many times since, but at the time I still blushed like a girl, although
I was nearly twenty, and a chap who blushes is hardly fit for an end
man in a minstrel show.
It took years of struggle before I conquered the characteristic
something in my mental make-up which caused me to lack
confidence in myself, and made me shy, shrinking and fearful.
If you take the doings of this very eventful year into consideration
you will not think it surprising that at the Christmas examinations I
was handicapped with three supplementaries, or that in the following
spring I was plucked once more. This time I expected it, and was not
cast down. I realised that getting an education in the college way
was not for me. Father and mother were, of course, somewhat
discouraged, but they had seen it coming.
 CHAPTER VIII

Father had become the owner, through one of his numerous

business deals, of what would be considered to-day a one-horse
saw mill. It was situated about ninety miles from Montreal, near a
little village of one thousand souls. I had been there for short visits
on several occasions, and liked the roughness and freedom of the
place. The manager of this mill (one Mason) and I liked each other. I
amused him and he interested me. He was a huge man with a face
smothered in black whiskers. He looked like a hairy Mephisto, but
had the tender nature of a dove.
After my second fiasco at M’Gill, my father said to me:
“Well, Jack, what do you propose to do now?”
He said other things also which it is not necessary to detail, except
that they were to the point, more than to my credit or his.
“Send me to the mill,” I replied, “and let me learn the business. I
like the place and will do well there if I get a chance. I will marry soon
and settle down.”
He was too wise to discuss a thing like my marriage, which
seemed so far in the future.
“Humph!” said he, “we will see about it.”
Seeing about it was never a very lengthy process with him.
Generally when he said that, his mind was already made up.
Letters passed between him and Mason, and in a few days the
matter was arranged. I was to assist Mason and learn what I could
from him, at the rate of five dollars per week during good behaviour.
These things were, of course, made known to Muriel, who loved to
mother and advise me.
If Mrs. Joseph had shown the wisdom of my father and taken for
granted that the affair between her daughter and one Wesblock was
a boy and girl love of no consequence, I might not have been
married yet. But she disliked me particularly. She saw no future for
her daughter with me. In her anxiety to oppose me she just overshot
the mark, as so many over-anxious mothers do. She gave our affair
an importance it never would have had unopposed and unobtrusively
watched.
My start in life, as my going to the saw-mill was considered to be,
was highly satisfactory to every one concerned. To Muriel and me,
the prospect of our being able presently to live in a nice little house
in the woods, to live there together till we became rich, when we
would come back to Montreal and show our relatives and friends
what we had become—seemed like a beautiful dream. It turned out
almost exactly that way, with several minor differences to be
presently set forth. To Mrs. Joseph my taking off to the wilderness,
ninety miles from the city, was a distinct relief. The Doctor wished me
well with smiles. He had not much faith in me, but liked me well
enough to hope. Father and mother were also hopeful, with
misgivings.
The parting from Muriel came as partings will. How much she
suffered I do not know, but it made me ill—seriously ill—I could
neither sleep nor eat, and for days after my arrival at the mill I was in
a half-dazed condition. Muriel wrote splendid letters daily, and I lived
on these until I came to myself and started what I considered the
simple task of learning the lumber business.
It had been stipulated by my father that I should remain at my post
six months, entirely under the hand of Mason, without trips to
Montreal oftener than once in thirty days. I was lodged and fed like
all the mill hands, and once every two weeks received my pay
envelope.
Mason was kind to me and allowed me great liberty, but I had to
work, and work hard, at every kind of labour, from keeping tally to
loading slabs. I was a joke to the little community; but I did not know
it. For weeks I was abed at eight o’clock, sometimes before
sundown, I was so tired out.
 The first thirty days being completed, I made my first week-end
visit to Montreal. An hour’s drive to the railroad station and three
hours on a slow mixed train left little of my short holiday, but I was to
know worse things than that. Calling at the home of my beloved, I
found that my arrival was expected and strangely prepared for. Miss
Joseph, I was told, was out of town!
While not entirely taken aback, I was hurt and humiliated, and felt
very foolish under the knowing gaze of the maid who opened the
door to me. If I was not altogether unprepared for this cold reception,
it was because Mrs. Joseph had, on every available occasion, made
it unmistakably plain to me that I was not to her taste. Muriel’s letters
also had been quite frank relative to her mother’s estimate of me
mentally, physically, socially and financially. I had been referred to,
by Mrs. Joseph, as “that person Wesblock.” This could hardly be
considered very dreadful in itself, but when accompanied by a tilting
of the chin, with an expression about the nose suggestive of an
objectionable odour, with Mrs. Joseph’s thin, hard lips closed in a
straight determined line, it meant volumes. Muriel was incapable of
duplicating this expression of her mother. Her lips were full, red and
generous, like those of her dear father.
It must be admitted that Mrs. Joseph was quite right in her attempt
to protect her child from a man whom she considered undesirable. I
only objected to her high-handed methods.
Muriel had a cousin named Lizette, an orphan, who had been
brought up by Doctor Joseph. She was the same age as Muriel, but
different to her in every respect, being thin, sharp and vixenish. As
this girl honoured me with a dislike, quite as sincere as that of Mrs.
Joseph, she was glad to do service in meanly spying and reporting
her own version of whatever she could discover. Had Mrs. Joseph
taken the pains to argue kindly with me, she could have forced me to
admit after ten minutes discussion that there was no great promise in
me. For I believe I was a reasonable youth, had no great faith in
myself, and no desire to injure Muriel by ill-considered and rash
haste. But her very rude and plain opposition to me added just that
zest to my love affair which made it great in my eyes, and myself a
romantic hero. I have often wondered what element in my make-up
gave me success with the one woman who proved worth while to
me.
I left the door of the Joseph house dejected and thoughtful. I
strongly suspected Lizette of peeping at me from a window above,
but I did not look back. Naturally I was angry, and very much
disappointed, and as I walked home with hanging, thoughtful head, I
matured my schemes to outwit Mrs. Joseph and her lieutenant
Lizette.
I thought of Mrs. Joseph as a wicked old girl. She was wicked and
old to me, although she was only forty at the time. I think of her to-
day as an old girl, but see her with very different eyes and call her
Grandma. To outwit her was really not a very difficult proposition.
Bribes to servants soon re-established my line of communication,
without fear of letters being intercepted, or returned unopened by the
watchful mother or the wily Lizette. The coachman, for a modest
sum, arranged that Muriel and I might drive together, when I came to
Montreal again. Friends of Muriel’s were kind too and connived at
our seeing each other. It is a very cold-hearted person who will not
assist young lovers to meet. I confided the condition of my love affair
to my mother, who smilingly gave me her sympathy, for she did not
take me very seriously.
I returned at once to the mill, and from there wrote letters daily to
my dear, sending them in a roundabout and mysterious way.
My days there were most simple; hard work from seven in the
morning till six in the evening; letter-writing, a little reading, a little
music, and bed. I had naturally useful hands, and learned the
pleasure and utility of being able to do things with them. I took
naturally to woodwork, and spent nearly all my Sundays in the
carpenter shop, where I cut and bruised my hands, and butchered
wood into clumsy, ill-fitting and rickety benches, stools and boxes,
which amused our mechanic greatly. But with perseverance,
patience and time my skill improved, so that before I left the mill I
had become something of an artist in wood, and could really do a
very nice and creditable job in joining and fitting. Thereby I much
improved my standing and influence with the mill hands. In after
days I took much satisfaction out of a well-equipped workshop.
Examples of my skill exist in every house into which our family is
divided. To make some useful thing for your own house, with your
own hands, to fashion some present for friend or relative, or to save
ingeniously some decrepit piece of furniture and renew its life of
usefulness, is indeed a splendid pleasure, good for body and soul.
To turn out a nice, clean, well-fitting joint, which satisfies the eye,
while you think and dream and plan, amidst the smell of sawdust,
shavings and clean things, is more than mere bodily and mental
satisfaction. There is something spiritual in it.
In thirty long days I was again entitled to go to Montreal. This time
I did not go to the Joseph house. I was thoroughly posted and so
was Muriel. I found her at the home of a kindly aunt, and we saw
much of each other during two whole days. Great days they were, as
I remember well, when we dreamed dreams of the great and happy
future before us, when we would be different from everybody else,
more happy, more generous, more broad-minded and forgiving.
Then back to the mill again; this time boiling over with energy and
enthusiasm, to do, to work and progress in health and knowledge of
things in general, and for an immediate end, to forward the lumber
business first and foremost.
Before I could go to Montreal again the Josephs had left for their
summer residence at Riviere du Loup, where they summered yearly.
Starting immediately after the schools closed, the Joseph “army,” as
it was called, moved to the seaside. Eleven children, maids, butler,
horses, carriages, generally one or two hangers-on, and Mrs.
Joseph, constituted the “army.” Muriel never liked this exodus very
much. She said it was like travelling with a circus, moving an orphan
asylum or a warlike tribe. Circus it certainly was as far as the
younger children could make it, for a wilder or more obstreperous lot
of imps of mischief never existed, and a more placid demeanour
than that of Mrs. Joseph, in the midst of her unruly brood, was never
exhibited by woman under similar circumstances. Occasionally she
might arouse herself to the exertion of pinching a particularly
annoying cherub, but that would be all, and she would proceed to
read, peaceful and unruffled. Many a time I was put out of