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A Multi-Robot Search Using LEGO Mindstorms -- An Embedded Software Design Project

Published: 04 October 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Embedded software is concurrent, real-time dependent, typically networked, must meet strict resource and high quality requirements, and often runs on cheap hardware. Altogether, this makes the education of embedded software designers a difficult challenge. In this paper, we present an embedded software design project, where students have to develop a multi-robot search using Lego mindstorms. The main idea is to confront the students with all the spites that are typically present in embedded systems, while at the same time giving them an algorithmically non-trivial problem to solve. To this end, we let the students use a bio-inspired search algorithm (particle-swarm optimization) to detect survivors (led by cries for help) in an unknown disaster zone using a number of Lego Mindstorm robots. We have executed this project simultaneously at the University of Potsdam and TU Berlin and discuss results and evaluations. We think that this project is very well suited for the education of embedded software engineers.

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  • (2024)Experimenting With Soft Robotics in Education: A Systematic Literature Review From 2006 to 2022IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies10.1109/TLT.2024.337289417(1261-1278)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2024

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cover image ACM Conferences
WESE'15: Proceedings of the WESE'15: Workshop on Embedded and Cyber-Physical Systems Education
October 2015
73 pages
ISBN:9781450338974
DOI:10.1145/2832920
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 04 October 2015

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Author Tags

  1. Education
  2. Embedded Systems
  3. Multi-Robot Search

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ESWEEK'15
ESWEEK'15: ELEVENTH EMBEDDED SYSTEM WEEK
October 4 - 9, 2015
Amsterdam, Netherlands

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  • (2024)Experimenting With Soft Robotics in Education: A Systematic Literature Review From 2006 to 2022IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies10.1109/TLT.2024.337289417(1261-1278)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2024

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