Which controler for driving mecanum?
 

Just wondering wich gamepad or joystick other teams are using drive mecnum. Also what are the control layouts that teams use.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

In the past, 857 has used a three-axis joystick for mecanum drive.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

Last year 461 used 2 joysticks. One joystick was just the translation and the other was rotation.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

We did mecanum drive on an off-season project once. We used a Logitech Dual Action controller (an older version of the F310, and basically equivalent to it).

The control scheme we used was:
Left stick y-axis: speed forward/backward
Left stick x-axis: strafe left/right
Right stick x-axis: rotate left/right

In other words, we used RobotDrive::MecanumDrive_Cartesian (in WPILib), with LeftY, LeftX and RightX for the x, y and rotation arguments. So it's the simplest/laziest control scheme, but it seemed to work well, and it's intuitive for the driver.

I'm curious to see what controls teams with more mecanum experience prefer.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

We used a three axis Logitech joystick to control our field oriented mecanum drive last year. I liked having it on one stick, but we had to put a deadband on the rotation axis to keep it from turning too much by accident.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

this is what we have used in the past.

But this year i would like to atleast try the gamepad with left stick for strafing and right stick for rotation

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

We had a good experience using an Xbox controller. Strafing was the left joystick, rotation the x-axis of the right joystick, and we ignored the final axis.

Re: Which controller for driving mecanum?
 

1246 used to do custom programming on a single joystick. Normal 4 wheel drive for front and back quadrants (up to 45 degrees on the joystick). Full left and full right would be 100% strafe steering. In between, a blend for strafe steering.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

4215 has experimented with 2 driving styles. Both use 2 2-axis joysticks. The first has one joystick for arcade driving and one just for strafing. The other is a tank drive with one of the sticks being able to strafe.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

Being the driver, and liking tank style, I requested that we control (not drive) our robot with tank-style controls. We used an Xbox controller and had the left-y control the left side forward/backwards and the right-y for the right side. The strafing was controlled by the triggers, which were analog on the controller that we used. If we do it again, I would use two joysticks in a tank formation and modify the triggers to be analog (or use the x-axis of one of them for strafing).

The trick was averaging in the strafing at the same time, which our amazing programmer had a true "Eureka!" moment when she figured it out. Her method provides a more "natural" way (if you naturally like tank-style controls) for mecanum the full mobility of mecanum still retained.

I'll try to find the algorithm and put it here soon.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

I meant to say arcade until the stick gets to 45 degrees. I'm pretty sure our programmer just used a linear proportion to give the driver strafe "steering". As you know, sideways steering is pretty inexact anyway.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

Last year we used an Xbox controller and controlled it call of duty style. I liked that setup a lot and want to do it again, but my team this year wants tobdo a 3 axis joystick because it has more resolution

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

Here's a common way to do it:

Forward = (Y_left + Y_right) / 2

RotateCW = (Y_left - Y_right) / 2

Then feed the Forward and RotateCW values into the Y and Rotation inputs, respectively, to the MecanumDrive_Cartesian method¹ in WPILib (or LabVIEW). Use a joystick X axis or something else for the X (strafe) input.

¹void RobotDrive::MecanumDrive_Cartesian(float x, float y, float rotation, float gyroAngle)

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

The way our team hypotheses to drive it was to use an x-box controller with the left stick be the forward back left and right and the triggers to rotate left and right.

Re: Which controler for driving mecnum?
 

mecanum*