Tank Drive Car

[James Critchley]

Every once in while somebody posts an M113 for sale on e-bay. They are quite reasonably priced, agile, configurable (APC, medical evac, command and control, engineer, utility, etc.). And the US government will be disposing of THOUSANDS of them over the next six years. These tracked vehicles are 1960's era skid steer and some (all?) use the differential lever type steering you're looking for... "tank drive".

All modern agile tracked vehicles (military high mobility platforms) use a steering wheel, accelerator, and brake pedals. The newest ones might even start using a joystick. I don't see them going back the two stick design, it's not in any trade studies I've seen anyway.

Have any teams looked at user interface studies on "tank drive"? Our results from an early season test this year showed that independent up-down and left-right (axis 1 and 3) on a PlayStation style Logitech game pad was twice as fast for combined gross and precision movements. Our study involved at least 5 untrained users (users unfamiliar with the platform, not unfamiliar with various control methods) and the results were consistently half the time, even for those asking for "tank steer". Why is "tank steer" so popular?