Year: 2020
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: In recent years, courses in the design and programming of mobile autonomous robotics have been introduced at a number of institutions.These activities provide experience in a number of practical areas, including computer programming, project management, and technical writing.Further, they provide those experiences in an entertaining manner that may motivate students to pursue additional education in computer science and engineering.By their nature, however, these classes are resource intensive, often limited access to a few, fortunate students.In an experimental attempt to increase access to these opportunities, we have offered an introductory level course in autonomous robotics over the World Wide Web.In our class, students developed robot controllers to solve a series of increasingly difficult problems on a mobile robot simulator that we designed and implemented using Java.When finished, they upload their controllers to a real robot in our lab and observe the results via a WWW web cam.In this document, we will focus on our class' infrastructure with particular emphasis on the design and operation of a platform independent graphical simulation of the Khepera mobile robot.We will discuss how this freely available software provides accurate simulation, ease of use, and compatibility with the real robot in our lab.The paper will conclude with a discussion of the future plans and a set of open questions we intend to address in future offerings of the course. Why WWW Autonomous Robotics?Although formal classroom instruction is necessary to the education of engineers, it is not alone sufficient.Engineering is about solving problems of practical import.In reality, such problems are rarely as well defined as the average classroom exercise -which is usually designed to approximate problems one will really face.Real problems often lack a clear statement of what is needed.It can be as hard to figure out what to do as it can be to figure out how to do it.Real problems rarely possess any one "correct solution".Real problems, in short, defy domestication.
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--12119
Author: John Gallagher
Institution: Wright State University
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2513185299