Quote:
Originally Posted by craigboez
I don't understand. Why would you go to the trouble of building an extremely complicated drive so it can approximate the functionality of a very simple drive?
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Because it gives you swerve capabilities, but without the downsides of a 4wd. One of the significant downsides to a typical coaxial 4wd swerve is that it cannot turn on it's center very well (skid steer), for the same reasons that a 4wd has a harder time turning around it's center than a 6wd (if this concept is unfamiliar to you, there are many threads on CD that discuss the physics behind this, go look them up).
There are two main solutions to this: 1) do a module style (non-coaxial) swerve or an independently driven (ala Emperor Swerve by 973) which allows the wheels to always turn such that they are not skidding when making a center turn or 2) make your code so that you don't make turns like that most of the time (as 40 used to do, with quadra-steer).
If you add the extra set of dropped center wheels, you get all the benefits of a swerve drive, but you still have the non-swerve driving characteristics of a 6wd.