Specialized Knowledge

The skills gained while working on a robotics project tend to be specialized to the area of robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Porting concepts from this discipline to other areas of computer science may be difficult. Robotics applications are unlike many other computer science applications in that they require the use of real-time programming (RTP) techniques. While RTP is not widely used thus far, it is a programming technique that will become more widespread when embedded computer devices are more commonplace.

This argument could be countered quite easily. The Computer Science Department at SIUE is pursuing a strong robotics program because they feel it introduces students to many programming concepts. I will be interesting to watch how this program benefits the students whose interests fall outside the realm of robotics. While it may be beneficial to students who find robotics interesting, it excludes a portion of the Computer Science student body who find robotics uninteresting.

Interdisciplinary Experience

Robotics is a research field for many engineering disciplines. As a result, people from many types of backgrounds may collaborate on a project. A common problem among engineers is communications between different disciplines. A project may fail because of a failure to communicate, rather than incompetence of the engineering staff. Increasing the communication between engineers will improve the likelihood of a shared vision and that project specifications are adhered to. When computer scientists have some insight into other engineering disciplines they may be better prepared to diagnose problems in an application. In the case of the RAFS project, suppose we receive an error when utilizing the camera device. If the code seems error free we could work with a computer engineer to verify the camera device driver is returning accurate data.