Learning the language and general principles of robotics

 

Can anyone suggest a good resource for learning this for an old dog learning new tricks (or sometimes figuring out that it's an old trick with a new name)? I get lost in some of these threads because I don't understand the terminology and I think I lose people in some of mine because I don't describe things in the right terms. I have about 30 years of programming under my belt and a fair amount of it is low level firmware, drivers and the like so bit banging and chip level details are not a big issue, nor is program structure and detailed logic. The big picture is where I am lacking; I didn't know there are fairly standard algorithms for SLAM and PID; I didn't even know the acronyms.

Anyway, browsing around I find things that assume I either know way less or way more than I do. Any suggestions for sites/books or whatever for seasoned software developers new to robotics would be appreciated.

Hello arbarnhart

Have you seen this one?  … should keep you busy for a little bit…

http://openslam.org/ 

OK, that’s the deep end of the pool…

Or if it isn’t, I am in real trouble.

For my current project, I don’t know that SLAM will be possible. It’s an open ocean USV. The surface is featureless and the bottom is too far away to detect features. That won’t always be the case, but it will be most of the time. But I am on a tangent when I should be thanking you for pointing me toward that. Thanks!

EDIT - I continue to be forum posting impaired - this was supposed to be a reply to GroG…

heres another

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping