Gyroscope saturation?
 

We are planning on using the gyro angle to offset our cartesian coordinate plane so that when the operator presses the joystick away from himself, the robot always moves away from the operator regardless of robot orientation.

However, this years 80 degrees per second gyro has me a bit worried. It's tough to do by feel, but it sure seems like our robot can pull a 90 degree turn in less than 1 second by rotating.

Has anyone else had to deal with this, and does anyone think the robots can spin fast enough to saturate the gyro?

I considered purchasing last year's gyro but I can't find anywhere to do so.

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

Yes, it's possible. Two potential solutions come to mind: 1) write some code that will monitor and record the peak values from the gyro. If you find that you have a problem, you can implement a control loop that will minimize the chance that the gyro will saturate. 2) Purchase another gyro like the ADXRS150 or the ADXRS300.

-Kevin

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

I believe we have the same gyro as last year. If I am correct, it was also an 80 deg/sec gyro.

Try looking on SparkFun for a gyro. About $70 should get you a 150 or 300 deg/sec gyro.

Dang it Kevin, you beat me to it.

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

Bilbo, read this year's sensor manual. We have a new gyro. Last year's was 150 dps - so I wasn't terribly worried about saturating it with quick turns.

Thanks guys. I think I'll do both the code and purchase a higher dps one just to be sure. Better safe than sorry when it comes to the drivetrain.

Kevin, I'll admit that most of the words they're using on the specs page are foreign to me (mechanical engineer doing controls, go figure). Will the ADXRS300 simply "drop" in place of the KOP gyro using your same code?

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

I did! That's how I know the actual part number I have on the gyro from last year (AD22304) is identical to the part number on the gyro we got in the KOP this year.

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

Should work just fine. Just select your new gyro from the list in gyro.h and compile. Let me know if you have any problems.

-Kevin

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

That's odd. I haven't had a chance to look at the old gyro (it's buried in the old robot off doing demos at bowling allies...). But the sensor manual says it's different from last years. Wouldn't be the first time one of First's manuals was wrong though!

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

The sensor manual states that last year's sensor was ADXRS150, this year's AD22304, having a dynamic range of 150 d/s and 80 d/s respectively.

No, the manuals are never ever wrong...:yikes:

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

We've had relatively good luck using 300 deg/s gyros. It's not fool-proof, however, since you'd be surprised the sorts of short-duration high-turn rate impulses you get from robot collisions. Expect it to still drift, especially in a game like this year's.

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

Last year for our dynamic braking system, we wanted a feedback loop from not only the optical encoders on the wheels, but also the gyros. However, I have experienced the same problems with saturation during collisions, and even when our robot turned fast enough.

I remember something from last year when i was researching the gyro from the KOP, that it was 150dps. Even with that we still had that saturation problem.

I agree with the solution of lower resolution gyros, but with the budget of a small team, it may take some convincing.

Also, what resolution on the controller end were you getting? How many values / dps rotation ?

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

Uber, we haven't implemented a testbed for this year yet, so I don't have any data. This was all hypothetical, because I was pretty sure you can saturate the 80 dps gyro pretty easily. I'll go with the 300.

Can collisions really saturate this gyro? How far off would that knock the reading? It seems to me most collisions don't spin robots at high rates.

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

You could also ask your team the question of whether or not the robot should turn 90 degrees in less than a second for this game. Aside from sudden impacts that turn you, I doubt you'll ever have the need to experience a quick turn on a holonomic robot -- you could instead simply side-step an obstacle.

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

Yes, collisions can cause saturation of the gyros, even if they result in turning the robot slowly. It's all physics, the collision results in an extremely high, however very short turn rates. Graphically speaking, the turn rate spikes, then drops down when your turn rate is constant. This results in some very odd data sometimes, depending on how long that spike lasts, and if you pick it up or not.

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

We've experimented with the 75, 80 and 150 deg/sec yaw rate sensors, in the past, and have always concluded that we needed to purchase a 300deg/sec sensor, to keep up with the turn-rate capability of out 'bots.

I used to get them right from AnalogDevices, but these past 2 years, they show that they (their evaluation boards) won't be in stock until April :(

Anyway, let me throw this out for consideration. Can the yaw rate sensor in the K.O.P be "over-clocked" (for lack of a better word) - to measure a wider range? I'd be willing to experiment with giving up some sensitivity, to get 300 deg/sec for the K.O.P sensor.

Eric

Re: Gyroscope saturation?
 

I seem to remember that by placing a resistor across the leads you can modify the dps, but reduce other functions. Look up and thoroughly read the manuals for each sensor - I think I saw it there.

http://www.analog.com/UploadedFiles/...s/ADXRS150.pdf

I believe it's the portion talking about changing the scale.