Bang Bang Control, motors, and transmissions

[David Lame]

Like many people with a whole lot of college classes, I know an awful lot of theory, and am lacking a lot of practical knowledge.

I implemented a minimum-time control loop for vision-based orientation control. Basically, use vision to see where you are with respect to the goal, and then use the controller, with the gyroscope as feedback, to move to the position determined by the goal. In testing it worked great. We didn't finish it in time to include it in competition, but we might do some off season work to perfect it.

The problem is that I'm a bit worried about what it will do to the motors and/or transmissions with repeated use. The bang-bang controller used for the project switches between full forward (+1) and full reverse (-1) instantly. I know the big problem with bang-bang control is that not all mechanical components tolerate that sort of sudden reversal very well. If I do a lot more testing on it, am I likely to destroy the transmissions or motors?

I'm sure it depends partly on the components themselves. I'm sure some can hold up to that kind of abuse, and some cannot. Unfortunately, now I hit the limits of my knowledge. Is there any way to know, in advance, which ones are more likely to have issues? Can I look at the specs on a Toughbox at AndyMark and see something that will tell me about durability when used with a bang-bang controller?

I'm guessing that the motors themselves are less likely to have a problem, but once again I don't really know that. I just know that when I read about bang-bang control, there's always a caution that says they can be damaging to components. I just don't know how to know, in advance, which ones are more likely to hold up, and which ones will be reduced to ballast by the end of a district match. Is there any way other than destructive testing to figure out what are the limits of these components?