In my experience, the most effective way to program a mobile robot is to use a behavior-based approach. Uncomplicated behavior-based methods enable robots that are at once robust, sophisticated, and inexpensive. Thus it always bothers me that few amateurs, hobbyists, and educators seem to take full advantage of this powerful approach to robot programming.
So I wrote another book. McGraw-Hill has just published, ³Robot Programming A Practical Guide to Behavior-Based Robotics.² The new book seeks to present behavior-based robotics in a way that makes it accessible to a wide audience and shows how behavior-based techniques can be implemented on low-end microprocessors. In an attempt to make learning the skills as painless as possible the book is integrated with an online robot simulator created by my colleague, Dan Roth, of MIT. You can find the simulator and information about the book at:
Joe Jones