Swerve Rotation Control

[aldaeron]

With the number of swerve designs and built swerves increasing, I am curious about older designs like the Wild Swerve. In this design the motor rotates with the module, meaning that without care, the wires would get tangled and could break. I have not seen many great slip rings (yes there are some) for this type of design.

My question for those who have built swerves: For a design like this can you keep track of the total rotation angle since initialization and manage it in code? The steering motors seem like they can be geared to move quickly. An example would be that the robot has rotated +680 degrees and is still for more than one second, so the steering motor rotates two revolutions in the opposite direction to unwind to -40 degrees. This is the same heading, but the wires are much less wound now. Another scenario could be where you are at +1400 degrees and the command you give requests the module to rotate to +1440 degrees. Instead the module rotates a little farther the other way to +1080 degrees. Again - same heading, but less wound.

Would something like this be practical on a swerve? Seems like the module would only take a few more milliseconds to turn when taking "the long way" to unwind.

Would robot inspection allow this to pass (assuming a sufficiently long piece of flexible wire that cannot bind)

Thanks!

-matto-