[RyanCahoon]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

If you need to measure the absolute position of something, a quadrature encoder is not a good choice. Is there any way you can substitute a potentiometer (perhaps a multiple-turn one) or a magnetic shaft encoder?

As Alan says, an absolute sensor is a much better way to go. Consider, even if you saved the state of your drive system (for example the position of crab/swerve drive modules), there's nothing that prevents that state from changing between matches because i.e. someone accidentally bumps the robot while it's being transported.

While I have not used them myself, I highly respect US Digital as a brand, and it appears as if they have a couple of good choices. Depending on your budget, there's both an optical version and a magnetic version of absolute encoder. (You may or may not have to shield the magnetic version if using it in close proximity to a motor. Someone want to comment on this?) I'd recommend getting one with an analog output for ease of use, then just wire it to an Analog Input module on the cRIO.

--Ryan