A Versatile Approach for Teaching Autonomous Robot Control to Multi-Disciplinary Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Learning autonomous vehicle programming can be very challenging for students, especially when combined with robotic vehicle design and construction. This paper presents a methodology successfully used over the past six years to teach autonomy using a versatile platform built upon a commercially available product. A number of courses have been taught using the methodology at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Students' ability to successfully learn and produce a solution to an autonomous robot control challenge has shown to be very effective.