Quote:
Originally Posted by kramarczyk
In reviewing this thread I see the discussion boiling down to seven metrics.
- Peak Turning Torque
- Speed of Turn (given angle)
- Rock During Turn
- Overshoot (angular)
- Hopping During Turn (smoothness)
- Power Differential Required to Initiate Turn
- Drive Symmetry
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In regards to Peak Turning Torque, speed of turn, overshoot, and power differential required to initiate turn... I believe all of these can be improved with software assistance.
How is this possible? With software aid... it can measure the users intentions and gets to any desired angular velocity as quickly as possible by applying the correct amount of voltage at each iteration to overcome the inital grip and mass, and on deceleration applies the optimal reverse voltage to fight against the moment of inertia which in-turn mitigates overshooting issues.
Now I finally get what JVN has been trying to tell me in regards to a good trained driver on a good robot with no software aid. I think of the analogy of a drag race between two cars, one manual transmission and one automatic. The driver of the manual has more control and can get the ideal RPM before shifting gears, while the other driver has less control and his faith relies on the automatic transmission, and yes the guy in the manual transmission wins the race cause he's opimized getting the most control from the gearing.
Using this same analogy I'd be interested in the following statistic: There have been many racing arcade driving games that allow the player to choose manual or automatic. If we could survey the percentage of people that choose automatic over manual... I'm willing to bet it would be significant for automatic. I think times have changed where intuitive controls are favorable to the manual ability to "feel the car" as the player can focus on more important things like staying on the road dodging cars etc.
In regards to software aid, computers are faster than humans and can really "feel the car" doing most the grunt work making it more intuitive for the human. This isn't a substitute for a good mechanical machine, but I see it this way... you have two robots that need to turn exactly 180 degrees as quick as possible. one is mechanically sound with good wheel placement, CoM, tread profile etc. The other robot not quite on par with these things, but is on the bottom end of being a good robot. The manual driver has to apply a bit more initial force to get the turn started and then has to apply reverse voltage to get it to slow down and avoid the overshoot, while the other driver works with a perfectly tuned acceleration curve (to his liking) feel on the joystick... moves joystick out choosing his desired velocity from a good x^2 curve distribution and see's the robot matches in response to what felt right and when it gets closer to its mark he brings joystick back in and then releases the joystick... See how this puts a new spin on the turning quality metrics?