A Laboratory Course in Behavior-Based Robotics

The Behavior-Based Robotics course at Northwestern University is a project-oriented course that gives undergraduate and graduate students exposure to programming research-grade robots for real-time autonomous activity. The course, which has been running for five years, combines lectures on theory with large amounts of concrete project work in which students are encouraged to creatively select their own goals and approaches. One of the most unusual aspects of the course is its use of low cost, state-of-the-art hardware that provides not only SONAR and odometric sensing, but also a number of real-time vision systems. We will discuss the curriculum of the course and our experiences with it. We will also discuss the evolution of the hardware and software infrastructure used in the course and its impact on the students' learning experience.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2000
• Where: EXPERT
• Authors: Ian Horswill
• Keywords: Behavior-Based Robotics Course, EXPERT 2000, Project-oriented Course, Real-time Autonomous Activity