A simple and highly portable MATLAB interface for learning robotics

In order to attract engineering students from across a wide range of disciplines and subject areas to the study of robotics, it was highly desirable to have an easy-to-use MATLAB-based interface for students to use to program robots and conduct robot experiments. Undoubtedly, MATLAB is one of the most prevalent programming languages engineering students use for modeling, analysis, and data visualization. In this paper, a simple and highly portable MATLAB interface is introduced to support laboratory instruction and experimentation in robotics. This robot interface leverages student’s prior knowledge and skills in MATLAB so that it is easy for them to begin working and learning about many of the fascinating aspects of robotics. The interface was specifically developed for the Pioneer family of mobile robots, which uses a client–server communication model based on the Advanced Robotics Control and Operations Software (ARCOS). The interface client was developed using basic MATLAB functions and communicates directly with the ARCOS server operating on many Pioneer robots. The interface is very light weight and highly portable to any computing platform that supports MATLAB.