My first job out of school nearly 30 years ago was building commercial research autonomous robots. We used a subsumption arch for real time avoidance and path f

My first job out of school nearly 30 years ago was building commercial research autonomous robots. We used a subsumption arch for real time avoidance and path following linked to a reactive planner implemented in C and xlisp for goal directed actions and task execution. While most modern books on robotics skim the history of this area - there are a lot of good ideas from that period of research that can be cheaply revistited. If you know anyone interested in robotics - get them to read Ron's (lisper) three layer architecture paper - its a classic in terms of summarizing previous approaches and it also that provided a foundation for a lot what now drives today's research. re: NeilV - Braitenberg "Vehicles" book - enough goodness cannot be said about that book. It seems deceptively simple but its a wonderful place to start thinking about and being inspired to building simple beasties. As should Grey walter's wonderful tortoise: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2008/212017945378.html http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2008/212017945378.html