Teaching real-time programming using mobile robots*

Teaching theoretical concepts of real-time systems may be a challenging task without real hardware support. This paper discusses the use of the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT mobile robots for teaching real-time programming to bachelor’s students. The stable real-time control of a segway-like robot with a PID controller is used as case study to demonstrate the teaching methodology. Ada was used as real-time programming language. In general, very positive reviews were collected from the students after the course.