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Originally Posted by gnormhurst
Okay, let me play devil's advocate.
Wheel encoders have been done before, and I assume they work. If a robot uses differential (two-wheel) drive and we keep track of each wheel's motion, and the tires are pneumatic and don't ever slip on the carpet, can't we measure not only x and y but rotation as well?
So my question is this: what great advantage does an optical mouse have over wheel encoders that makes us want to make this work? Other than being really cool, that is.
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Well, Astronouth and I were actually talking about this last night. The problem is, there is a ton of slippage, all the time. And even if there weren't it's less precise in general. You can do it, a lot of people have, but optical will be much more precise and accurate. If you have rotating wheels, you gain some more accuracy: see "StangPS".
Optical, if you interface to the chip using quaderature, is, from a code standpoint, just as easy as using quaderature wheel encoders. Easier, in fact. The only issue is optics and illumination, both of which I am near solving.
I'm totally psyched, as I believe I'll be the first to have a working, all optical, nav system. Whether all optical is even a good idea remains to be seen.
And once this works, I've got an even cooler idea to work on, Muhahaha!