The information below is provided in an effort to help you determine if you have the background to follow this class.
For your projects you will use a modified version of OOPSMP. If you wish, you can read about OOPSMP and download an earlier version of OOPSMP from here. A related paper can be found here. Reading the paper and getting a glimpse at the extensive documentation of OOPSMP will give you a good idea of what to expect. You will be using the functions and libraries of that package to implement motion planning algorithms.
For the level of algorithmic sophistication that I would expect, please see from "Introduction to Algorithms" by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and Stein, Chapters 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 16, 22, 23, 24. You need to have a basic understanding of the material covered in these chapters. You need to understand what are trees, graphs, how one stores them and searches them.
For the level of mathematical sophistication I expect you have a basic calculus background and discrete mathematics background. Knowledge of probability is helpful. I would expect that you will be able to read the Appendices of your main book and that you will be able to read chapter 4 from LaValle's book .
I will be available on Friday August 29th from 1:00pm to 2:00pm at my office to answer any questions that you may have.