Bicycle Drive?

[Chak]

Bicycle drive would consist of a swerve module in the front and a free-spinning traction wheel in the back, with the CoG perfect centered on the line connecting the two wheel axles. It would drive like a bicycle.

This seems easy enough to build for some team with a spare swerve module. Has this been done before? If so, anyone have some video of it?:]

Of course, bicycle drive would be useless for a real competition since it tips far too easily and require constant movement to stay upright. Seems like a fun offseason project though, especially on the software side with auto-balancing code.

[Mike Marandola]

How would code balance a robot with one wheel in front of the other?

[Cothron Theiss]

How would code balance a robot with one wheel in front of the other?

I don't know for sure, but I think that, using gyros to determine if and how the robot is tipping, you could program it to turn into the direction it is tipping. With a good code and a well balanced robot you could theoretically drive relatively steady with this configuration.

[asid61]

Why not just take a bicycle and attach a servo or VP to the handlebars via a sprocket or gear? Then you just need the gyro and encoder, no swerve modules or anything necessary.

[MCahoon]

Check the 2008 robot from 1318 Issaquah Robotics Society. They called it the "Killer Rabbit". It was a lap runner following the same strategy 148 used with Tumbleweed. There is some video of it on The Blue Alliance. As I recall, it struggled with falling over during the first regional they entered, but by the 2nd regional they performed well enough to rank #2. I think it ended up with outriggers to keep the wheels on the carpet when it would tip so it could recover.

[gblake]

An autonomous motorcycle was entered into the first? DARPA autonomous vehicle "grand" challenge (The first of the two (the off-road one) challenges held a few years ago that were intended to give the autonomous ground vehicle industry a big boost).

A little internet searching should turn up info about their methods, and about the general topic.