A Network-Centric Approach to Computer Science Education and Research Based on Robotics

Summary A network-centric university teaching and research environment based around mobile robots is described. It supports teaching a wide spectrum of computer science and engineering subjects (eg digital electronics, computer architecture, operating systems, communications, distributed processing, software engineering, machine vision, artificial intelligence, embedded computer design, real-time computing, HCI, Computer Graphics, Virtual Reality etc) within a single unified experimental environment. This enables students to combine their coursework so as to build more complex, interesting and industrially relevant systems thereby significantly increasing their motivation and knowledge. The laboratory infrastructure makes extensive use of networks to produce a versatile and cost effectiveness teaching and research environment. This paper will focus on the teaching aspects of the laboratory describing the technical infrastructure showing how it is used to support the Essex University information technology curriculum and report on the effectiveness of the approach. Finally, to demonstrate the more general academic synergy provided by this laboratory a short overview of some of the research applications is presented.