View Single Post
  #6   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 30-03-2012, 01:12
ewhitman ewhitman is offline
Registered User
FRC #3504 (Girls of Steel)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jun 2011
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: Carnegie Mellon University
Posts: 12
ewhitman is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Curve Driving Generator

Ether is right that the first thing you need to do is plan a path. A polynomial will work find for many situations - you need a 4th order polynomial (y= ax^3+bx^2+cx+d) to fit position and slope at both ends. However, polynomials can give you weird behavior in some situations and can't handle others - you can't get a semi-circle for example.

The math is more complex, but I would recommend looking into splines as a more versatile tool for path planning. Alternately, you could try composing your trajectories entirely of circular arcs and straight segments.

Once you have a path, you can compute the curvature of the path everywhere along it. From the path curvature and the speed, you can compute angular rotation rate (degrees/second). From the rotation rate and the speed, you can get your wheel velocities (using the geometry of your robot).
__________________
2004 - student 1257
2005 - mentor 1257
2006 - mentor 1257
2011 - mentor 3504
2012 - mentor 3504
2013 - mentor 3504