Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

I'm trying to find information about swerve-style drivetrains from outside the FIRST community, but I'm having some trouble because when I try to search for "swerve drive," "crab drive," and other alternative names or similar systems, I get basically nothing but team websites and CD threads. I was wondering if anyone knows by what name the system is known outside of FIRST. I'm pretty sure it, or at least something very similar, exists outside of FRC, but I can't figure out what it would be called. Thanks in advance!

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

Try googling 4 wheel independent steering

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

Perfect. Thanks so much.

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

It's known almost exclusively within the LEGO community as a "Synchro Drive" but I don't know beyond that.

Although I was familiar with the system, I had never heard of it being called "swerve" before I joined FRC.

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

Just curious and barely on topic... who was the first team that had a swerve-like drive? 71?

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

If I remember correctly it was the namesake of this forum, Team 47 Chief Delphi. Might be wrong about that, though.

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

By the way there's also some literature on "powered castor" sorts of robots, which is like a swerve except that the wheels are offset from their axes of rotation. This may be interesting if you want to explore the design space of robot locomotion a bit. On the other hand, the results that I've looked at for those didn't seem very interesting for a normal FIRST sort of swerve since a lot of the complexity in their results was due to the existence of the offset.

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

Typically "synchro drive" refers to a system where the wheel orientations are synchronized. This is common on LEGO robots where it's much easier to make a system with 2-3 motors rather than 8. The words "holonomic" and "omni-directional" are more general, but commonly used in the robotics literature for these kinds of drivetrains.

This is one of the areas where FRC teams have been right at the state of the art in robotics, so we've developed a lot of our own terminology and classification for these things. In the robotics community, papers tend be titled things like "A novel holonomic robot drive platform". At best, drive systems get named after their inventors (e.g., Killough drive named after Steven Killough, or mecanum wheels named after the Swedish company Mecanum AB).

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

It maybe not be quiet the same thing but Azimuth thrusters for cruse ships and tug boats are similar.
The technology exists in a lot of forums out side of drive modules like the ones we see. Cable laying ships use holonomic type drive systems to keep everything aligned properly.

A lot of first teams seem to be at the edge of developing these systems wear thing don't need to be as agile as a swerve in the real world(some argue the same thing about first to).

http://www.google.com/patents/US20070080000
This seems to have a lot of the same concepts that modern swerve drives have. It also references a good amount of patents for similar drive types. though its technology being referenced seems to be really old(for 2010) and some of what its stating is strange at best. (lots of big words....)

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

Someone got a patent for a "Powered caster wheel module for use on omnidirectional drive systems" a while ago, but the patent expired in 2007. The other patents and devices in the Referenced By section all have unique swerve concepts worth taking a look at.

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

"Powered castor", "synchro drive", "omni-directional", and "holonomic" are the terms I see most often at academic conferences and in journals.

"synchro drive" usually refers to the all-pods-steered-together case, and "omni-directional" and "holonomic" are equally applicable to mecanum or omni-wheeled platforms.

Re: Non-FIRST name for Swerve Drive
 

It was indeed Chief Delphi in 1998. That robot was one of the most dominant robots ever, and was one of the reasons the 1 vs 1 vs 1 format of game drew criticism after that year.