[apalrd]

The "Halo" HMI uses the left stick as translation and right as rotation (4 DOF - forward, strafe, look side, look up). We just don't use any of the DOF's that the robot can't drive in, so for a skid-steer we use the Y axis of the left stick as the "throttle" and X axis of the right stick as "wheel" in an arcade or cheesy style drive. We use a cheesy style drive but automate the "quick-turn" input based on wheel values (more later in the post).

We've also implemented Halo controls on slide robots (3 DOF), and find them very nice to drive. However, while facing yourself, it takes much longer to get used to the orientation and slide the opposite way, something some of our VRC drivers handled very well, and something one of our VRC drivers never really handled. This is by far the best HMI for a 3DOF robot.

The "Cheesy Drive" is 254's arcade drive which uses "quick turn" and "speed turn" algorithms to find a much better solution than a standard arcade drive:
-When in quick turn, the output is a standard arcade drive -> Left = throttle + wheel, right = throttle - wheel
-When in speed turn mode, left = throttle + (wheel * throttle * gain) and right = throttle + (wheel * throttle * gain), so it handles speed adjustments properly.
-Quick Turn is only used when throttle is at or near 0, so you can turn without applying forward power.