AE 498 MPA: Logistics

You are an aerospace engineer who wants hands-on experience designing GPS navigation systems.
You want to enter the trillion-dollar telecommunications industry. (There were one billion cell phones sold last year alone!)
You want to apply artificial intelligence to the real world.
You want to impress the Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto with a cool project.
You want to explore the use of mobile social networks as a basis for urban planning.
You want to know how "driving directions" are generated by Google Maps.
You are interested in embedded software development.
You want to learn state-of-the-art techniques for probabilistic localization and mapping.
You want a non-traditional introduction to robotics and autonomous systems.
You like to think about human interface design, and want to know how motion planning algorithms can help.

In this course you will learn the basic principles of motion planning by focusing on their application to navigation aids, which help real people make real decisions. Student teams will each work with a new Nokia N95 smartphone, donated by Nokia Palo Alto Research. We will use these phones as a platform to discuss embedded software development (with a crash course in Symbian C++ programming), localization and mapping (using GPS signals), search algorithms (to generate driving directions), and human-machine interaction (optimal interface design). The course will culminate in student projects.

There are no formal prerequisites. But this course will require some mathematical sophistication, a willingness to work independently, and the ability to complete a significant programming project.

AE 498 MPA: Intelligent Mobile Navigation