Chief Delphi - Attaching Thermostats

The KOP "gyro" is actually a yaw rate sensor. Its output signal is a voltage which changes based on how quickly it is turning around its axis of sensitivity. The cRIO FPGA firmware has support for integrating that signal to compute a heading angle, but that angle is subject to a couple of errors. One error source is slight drift in the signal offset from the sensor. Over the fifteen seconds of autonomous robot operation at the beginning of the match, that error is usually not significant, but it can drift noticeably during a two-minute match. The other source of error is sudden brief shifts in robot orientation that can exceed the maximum range of the sensor. The computed angle will start losing accuracy when that happens. Again, it's usually not a big deal for the first part of a match, but it can add up to a problem in a couple of minutes of constant motion.

If you mount it on its side, it will still tell you only how quickly it is changing orientation. It does not automatically provide an absolute indication of its angle. A two-axis accelerometer, on the other hand, can do a very good job of identifying the "down" direction.