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I don't claim to be an expert, but from what I've seen there's a typically a huge gulf between the software and hardware. Until recently, it's been difficult to put a lot of CPU on a mobile robot, so the software developer really has to be a programmer with an embedded systems mindset. For instance, the Arduino is a relatively recent phenomenon, and that's seriously under-powered if you're interested in high-level planning, or vision. But the GumStix or BeagleBoard look interesting, since there's a pretty accessible tool-chain available. On the hobbyist front, most of the people setting out to build (for instance) humanoid robot kits have a lot of fun with getting the hardware together, but realize that dabbling in software really doesn't get you very far. For the software-mindset hobbyists (like me), it's a lot more practical to do robot experiments virtually - since as soon as one gets out the soldering iron, the whole weekend disappears instantly. "Hardware is tough", and (unlike software) iterating the design/plan is extremely time-consuming. OTOH, once a few decent platforms appear (in the $1000 ballpark), I guess software people will swarm in and push things into exponential mode, rather than what seems like linear mode right now. |
I consider myself software oriented too, and recommend it to others who are looking at going beyond a basic microcontroller based robot, but without all the soldering.