Why is swerve so slow?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

It seems the inability to carry momentum through a change in translation direction causes a swerve to be a bit slow.

For example, on a skid steer setup, you can be moving very fast and basically pin one side to the ground. This allows the robot to use its own momentum to swing around the pinned wheel side. You exit the turn with almost as much energy as you had before, just moving a different direction.

I think most swerve drive software implementations are pretty naive and will just turn the wheels 90 degrees when the driver wants to start moving to the side. Field centric control only makes this worse as there is another controller between your driver and the wheels.

If we ever built a field centric swerve, I would almost certainly allow a drive mode that allows quick momentum saving direction changes. (Maybe a single button click? Maybe a press and hold button that locks 'forward' to the direction of your last translate command then allows throttle/turn steering?)

16 does this and it's why everyone thinks they are so fast.

We had variations of it in 2012 but never quite practiced them enough to utilize it.