Teaching robot navigation in the presence of obstacles using a computer simulation program

In this paper, an educational software tool called EDURobot has been developed to enhance the understanding of robotics for undergraduate and graduate students of computer and electrical and electronic engineering departments. The software tool mainly teaches students the navigation problems of a mobile robot avoiding obstacles in a static environment using different algorithms. The simulation environment is of a menu-driven one where students can draw obstacles of standard shapes and sizes and assign the starting point of the mobile robot. The robot will then navigate among these obstacles without hitting them and reach the goal point given by the user. Parameters associated with the different algorithms may also be changed to observe their effects which will further enable comprehension of characteristics of different path planning algorithms. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.