Making your robot drive easier

[Solace]

i posted a pic of our 6 wheel drive train. theres some stuff in the way, but you can still see most of it.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...gle&picid=7644

[Ryan F.]

Watch your speed. I saw some teams build robots that were incredibly fast, but I can just imagine the nightmare those drivers go through whenever they try to do something rather than getting from point A to B.

[KenWittlief]

feedback - PID control loop on the steering

using the default code to let the position of the joysticks control how much voltage (pwm) is thrown at the drive motors is as crude a control method as you can get (well, there is one thats worse, only having a GO/STOP switch :^)

no matter what your drivetrain is if you put yaw rate and/or linear speed sensors on the bot, and use feedback, you can remove all the nonlinearitiy, inertia, friction.... from the control system and MAKE the bot do exactly what the driver is commanding at any given instant.

another idea is to add a 'jog' function to your control system - I posted stuff about this before - let me search and see if I can find it...

yep,heres the thread - BTW it contains several other simple ideas on how to make your bot better:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&highlight=jog