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Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
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Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
The alternate vs normal raw mode is interesting. It was our method of removing the 'quick turn' switch, but we decided we liked the switch better.
In any case, the Radius component should be active from 0 to 90 degrees, plus a little for driver forgiveness. R allows us to return to 0 when the stick is centered, and the math works out such that you can drive it like a halo/cheesy drive if you want (although that's not quite ideal, the math works out the same). I am aware that above 90 slightly more turning power is possible, but I didn't really care. I also probably mistyped the radians to degrees, I actually used 180/Pi in the LV implementation and didn't precalculate it. The initial ('alternate') raw implementation was designed to provide 'quick turn' functionality (steering without throttle for turn-in-place moves) by allowing the driver to move the stick in a fairly binary way around the bottom of the stick bounds (near +-180). It did not use theta at all (except for the enablement curves). We did not like this behavior, and decided to use the 'quick turn' button to switch. It's interesting to see some SW design choices you made in your implementation. |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
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..........0 ....-45.....45 -90.....+.... 90 ....-45.....45 ...........0 here is that implementation using atan2; Code:
//Find arctan of wheel stick relative to vertical (i.e. swap the x and y components)Now then assuming this is true... both calls to interp_2d() are no longer needed as they will always return 1.0. Especially the Radius Enablement curve. So really the theta and r (magnitude) are the heart of the culver drive. Just using these by themselves can be a nice sweet substitute for anyone's function that takes an x-axis. I'll give this a shot in our drive and perhaps post it on you tube this weekend... the other cool thing is doing it like this... after obtaining the normalized value (i.e. theta * r )... it can be used with Ether's equations for even greater control of the distribution of the curve. Here's a little snip of that... Code:
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Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
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The intent for Radius was to replace the x-axis input in the Cheesy Drive with the theta*r input. We provisioned a lot more to place the raw/quick turn elsewhere on the stick range (the negative half) in the alternate-raw implementation, but the normal raw is just a cheesy drive with a quick turn button. In fact, the entire reason we used the interp curves was to support the alternate raw implementation. We never revisited the math when we decided we didn't like it. |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
Hi Palardy,
So I have started to integrate the Culver drive controls in our simulation and I have found some interesting findings: When I started testing this, I found that not all circular controllers have the same diagonal intensity as the LogicTech F310. I tested the AirFlo which is also circular, but in testing, it reached full x and y intensity at the corners. I am not sure if there is a spec yet for identifying this, but it should probably be in a form that shows the full x and y intensity ratio (when diagonal), because the F310 I have tested if you normalize x and y readings and move the joystick to its full diagonal where they are equal...it is more than (sin(45) / 70.7...) it's around 80. I believe though that controllers like the AirFlo can still benefit from the Culver drive, because the faster speeds really shouldn't matter as much. So using just the theta and magnitude and testing this with full y component magnitude. I put a UI feedback that shows what the value would have been if I just used the x component right beside the new value of (theta * r). It turns out they were equal (at first)! This means anyone can simply use halo drive code and control the wheel in the same manner to get the same effect. Now then in regards to the 80% normalized value I mentioned above... as you rotate the wheel closer to 90... the magnitude will actually exceed 1.0... to around 1.14... so as it gets closer and the magnitude increases you lose precision you would have had otherwise, but at these faster speeds it doesn't really matter. So I have some good news though... I'd recommend you try the same tests if you can and see if you are getting the same results. If I scale the magnitude to around 0.875... this works out perfect where it starts with a magnitude of this (0.875) moving joystick to full Y with x centered... and then by the time it reaches the corner it will be around 1.01. With this you can finally achieve a greater precision for the slower speeds. The derivative of the distribution looks like a "soft" x^2 when compared testing against the x components raw value otherwise. One other interesting note is that I tested the halo drive scenario (i.e. no Y component)... this turned out to lose more precision than otherwise, but not by much. That said, this solution cannot substitute the need to filter out the dead zone of the joystick, and it should be virtually the same amount as otherwise. This loss of precision could be a benefit for an alternate quick-turn solution. For our setup the workflow may be to use halo drive for most quick turns, and then the Culver wheel drive to fine tune the turns. On Monday I'll try to show a demo of this and these number findings on YouTube. |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
Here is a quick demo... I have changed how the magnitude is computed in this demo. It blends from 0.87 when theta is 0 to (1/(pi/2)) when theta is 90. Let me know what you think. :)
http://youtu.be/NKd6inx9OH8 |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
I really like this demo, it does a good job of explaining the jist of how "Culver drive" works. I'll leave the magnitude computation change assessing to Andrew.
If you look up at my name you'll see that the second one is "Culver." I just wanted to explain why this is named after me (I'm not egocentric, I promise.) Last summer I picked up a controller to drive the 2012 robot and was very disappointed by my inability to do arcing turns using Cheesy drive. Walking out of Chrysler that evening I explained to Andrew what I would rather have -- point the stick forward and move it around the way you would if you were driving a car with one hand on 12o'clock, keeping the throttle the same. Andrew coded it from there and after we tested it on a robot and liked it we were trying to think of a catchy name for it (WASPdrive was already in development and named at this point.) We couldn't think of anything and Andrew already had it named after me in the code at this point so, much to my displeasure, left it "Culver drive." In any case, our driver really liked it this year and we'll probably be using it again next year. Cheers, Bryan |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
The demo is interesting.
The question of how to deal with the quick turns comes up a lot, not just for Culverdrive but also for Cheesy vs Halo drives (I've usually defined them as the same algorithm, but the switch from including Throttle to not including throttle is done via a button in Cheesy and when throttle = 0 in Halo). One design logic is that the quick turn button is an additional button that can be optimized out, the other is that with the button it's possible to slow down to 0 speed while in an arc turn without suddenly spinning. We initially used the design logic that the enablement curves would sum to 1 so as soon as the driver exceeded 95 degrees it would pull throttle out of the equation but the rest of the result would remain the same, to allow turning in place without the throttle. That is the 'alternate raw' implementation, which is actually the original. The current raw implementation is more similar to the original cheesy drive, and we just switch based on quick turn switch. There's still more optimization we can do. I like the interp curve function because I can plugin a set of points and map the curve as I want, however nonlinear or strange it is, without finding a mathematical way to represent it, and it's not that inefficient for relatively small tables. |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
That's pretty cool. I like the idea of automatically switching to quick turn after the driver pushes the stick far enough to the side. This is similar to a team who used an actual steering wheel to control their robot one year!
How do your drivers feel about this setup? In the past we've tried some similar things (cheesydrive/right stick steering wheel), but our drivers preferred a tank drive setup, claiming that the cheesy drive was better for driving around an empty field, but when in pushing matches and having to line up, tank drive was better. Also, do you know if anybody has come up with a way to use these style algorithms on swerve/meccanum, or with the sort of drive that 148 used in 2010 (I forget what it's called). |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
-Drivers did not complain. I personally loved it, and I drove a Halo style drive in 2012. High speed driving performance is WAY better than with a tank setup, and alighment is easier by optimizing it when the quick turn button is pressed.
--Driving with a steering wheel is not uncommon, we tried to emulate it with this, as we believe it is a superior HMI to a two-stick tank drive. -Purely subjective driver analysis has shown that it's MUCH easier/faster to master the graceful high speed arc maneuvers we want with a culver or cheesy drive than the two-stick tank. We actually have a lot of code in our 2011 robot (two stick tank) to modify the inner wheels to arc nicely when the driver lets go of one stick to turn, but that code was quite a bit of work to develop fully and not a good solution, since it really makes driving three-state (both sticks same direction, one stick full one stick zero, both sticks opposite direction) and the driver bumps it on and off a lot for jerky turns. -Judges loved it, noted 'Culver Drive' in championship award speech -We used a Halo drive with a slide drive in Vex (what 148 in 2010 had, except without the droppable traction wheels and bump crossing ability), we just used the left stick for translation and right stick for rotation. Since the left/right wheels control steering, we simply ran a normal Halo drive and mapped the slide wheel to left X (left Y was throttle for left/right wheels, right X was wheel). This ran three Vex robots and all drivers loved it for that drivetrain, one was able to pick up some 'fancy' moves like circling around a point in front of him or spinning around off a defender extremely quickly. For a mecanum, I would find theta/R of both sticks, and use left theta for translation angle, left R for throttle, and right stick would determine the rotation as it does now. Then you would just have to solve the mecanum math and warp everything back into the +-1 range nicely. |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
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![]() I have made a graphical representation of 3 different setups that try to illustrated the distribution. The one on the right is halo drive with just x and no y, and the top left is the culver theta * r where r is just magnitude with no scale. The bottom left is the blend of 0.875 to (1/(pi/2)=.64ish). The green tries to highlight the smaller numbers and how they are spread out. The spread of numbers between the 1.0 magnitude and the halo are virtually identical for the precision workflow (i.e. when using the max y stick up)... This means the actual benefit of precision (using 1.0) is a mechanical solution and could be accomplished using the halo drive. It does however have brighter red and blue intensity on the sides this is because when you get there your range will exceed past 1.0 to 1.57 (half a pi). The bottom one will keep the range 0-1 intact for halo while spreading out the centered area for Culver. This makes it both mechanical and functional benefit of precision. This suggestion makes the Y component a bit more interesting in that when Y is centered... it is identical distribution as the halo graph (therefore a perfect fit for anyone's driving system), and then when Y is used for Culver steering... the x distribution is greater for precise turning and then curves down quick to meet up with 1.0 at the end. I hope this makes sense... I can see a work flow solution to use halo drive for quick turns and culver drive for precise turns without need of a button. Quick turns in this context are in terms of what the x axis submits to another function... this means it is possible to use this for some other kind of control (e.g. arm) when it is broken down to just this functionality. I'll save the actual drive implementation for a separate post. |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
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Thanks for the feedback on the demo... (Thanks Palardy and Magnets too). Sometimes I feel like no one appreciates the effort and thought that goes into this... so it means a lot. :) |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
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I should add that I have incorporated the culver drive into some simulated swerve and nona drive code and they work great because this is solving the x-axis method, and passes the value as if it was the x-axis. Quote:
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Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
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-We do like velocity controls as well, but we haven't implemented them since 2011. I think that would be a logical improvement to this system. -That said, a simple PI controller to speed does not have a fast enough response time for drivetrain usage. We did this in 2011 and turned the gains WAY up for fast response, and oscillations weren't very good, but it worked. -A better solution is one of the better speed control algorithms designed for shooter flywheel speed control (2012 was especially big on this, 2013 less). We ran a PI-FF algorithm with a feed forward equation (now we would just use a table), which is an improvement |
Re: paper: FRC #33 The Killer Bees 2013 Software - BuzzXVIII (Buzz18)
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Mechanical engineers like to solve the controlling aspects of the drive and leave little for software to do... they are happy with just raw voltage input from the controls... and from this whatever non-intuitive issue arise it is left for the driver to get use to them and overcome them. This goes against the mentality of a software engineer which figures out intuitive solutions for all users to be able to pick up and use. If we cannot make it intuitive people will not buy our stuff. Quote:
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