ROBOT PROGRAMMING: A GUIDE TO CONTROLLING AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS

Rarely, at NREF have we looked forward to the release of a new book on robotics with the excitement and anticipation generated by the release of this book.  Coauthored by Cameron and Tracey Hughes of Ctest Laboratories, in collaboration with an impressive list of contributing editors, this work is a basic introduction to robotics programming. It also hints, with references for future reading, at the future task of coming to terms with how humanity and strong artificial intelligence can coexist in a principled moral world.  

This is an ideal starting point for students of any age who wish to  understand programming of autonomous robots.  The techniques presented are well suited to today's most popular robotics platforms, including ARM9 and ARM7 microcontrollers, Arduinos, LEGO Mindstorms EV3 and NXT, as well as the Wowee RS Media Robot. 

Those who would consider the implications of how robots can help mankind, and, also, the potential spectre of runaway machine sentience (aka, the Terminator), will want to probe the  links and works cited at the book's end. In these afterthoughts, the authors may be suggesting a partnership between humanity and machine intelligence that will be more than simple open-ended evolution of machine systems in our evolving civilization.

Cameron Hughes is a computer and robot programmer. He holds a post as a Software Epistemologist at Ctest Laboratories where he is currently working on A.I.M (Alternative Intelligence for Machines) & A.I.R (Alternative Intelligence for Robots) technologies. Cameron is the lead AI Engineer for the Knowledge Group at Advanced Software Construction Inc., a builder of intelligent robot controllers and software-based knowledge components. He holds a staff appointment as a Programmer/Analyst at Youngstown State University.

Tracey Hughes is a senior software and graphics programmer at Ctest Laboratories and Advanced Software Construction Inc. where she develops user interfaces and information and epistemic visualization software systems. Her work includes methods of graphically showing what robots and computers are thinking. She is on the design and implementation teams for the East-Sidaz robots at Ctest as well.

Both Cameron and Tracey Hughes are members of the advisory board for the NREF (National Robotics Education Foundation) and members of the Oak Hill Collaborative Robotics Maker Space. They are project leaders of the technical team for the NEOACM CSI/CLUE Robotics Challenge and regularly organize and direct robot programming workshops for the Arduino, Mindstorms EV3, LEGO NXT, and RS Media robot platforms. Cameron and Tracey are two of the authors of Build Your Own Teams of Robots with LEGO® Mindstorms® NXT and Bluetooth, published by McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics, January 2013. Their current book, Programming Robots: A Guide to Controlling Autonomous Robots, published by Que Book Publishers, was released in May 2016. They have written many books and blogs on Software Development and Artificial Intelligence. They’ve also written books on multicore, multithreaded programming, Linux rapid application development, object-oriented programming, and parallel programming in C++.