Learning Robotics with MATLAB and Simulink

Jose Avendano and Sebastian Castro discuss how you can use MATLAB^® and Simulink^® to teach robotics at various levels of primary and secondary school education.

First, Jose and Sebastian introduce the importance of modeling and simulation to learn theoretical concepts and explore algorithm designs using a combination of textual programming in MATLAB and graphical modeling with Simulink and Stateflow^®.

Then they show how the same designs that were tested in simulation can be automatically transitioned to low-cost educational robot hardware kits like LEGO^® MINDSTORMS^® EV3 and VEX V5 Robot Brain, or microcontrollers and single-board computers like Arduino^® and Raspberry Pi™.

Finally, Jose and Sebastian outline how you can connect MATLAB and Simulink to the Robot Operating System (ROS). This allows you to interact with robots and simulators designed to work with ROS.

To learn more, see the following resources:

• Teaching Robotics with MATLAB and Simulink
• Mobile Robotics Video Tutorials
• Connect MATLAB and Simulink to Hardware
• Getting Started with MATLAB, Simulink, and ROS
• Robotics Education with MATLAB
• MATLAB and Simulink for Robotics