Driving and "Traction controls"

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by willferral

I need some suggestions. Here is our problem: We designed our robot with a simple four-wheel drive system, skid-steering. We tested the original robot with a relatively slow gear system, and could go about 6ft/sec. We tested our robot early on without any "traction controls." It was easy to drive, and very maneuverable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asyMu...eature=related Then we changed two things. One, we geared up to 9 ft/sec. Two, we added traction control. Now the robot is very hard to drive. To me the driver, it feels like there is a "delay" in the system. Our programmer had good intentions by putting a traction control system in, but it make the robot intolerable to drive. How did your teams solve the control conundrum? Any suggestions for us? Thanks!

You've got a bunch of options:
1) Make a better traction control system. There are many options that allow for quick control. One of the ones posted (by 121 I believe) had encoders mounted on free-spinning wheels, one on each side. The driven wheels would then be set to have velocities either slightly higher or slightly lower (depending on what you wanted to do) than the free-spinning wheels.
2) Have it only enable when a button is pressed, or don't use it at all. This allows the driver to drive in 'raw' mode most of the time, then use traction control when quick acceleration is needed. As a programmer I never like this solution because it means my hard work will go unused most of the time, but from a practical standpoint: if the robot performs better without it, then don't use it. I have seen many matches go wasted because a robot just wants to use its ineffective mechanism or programming when it could have been better spent doing less glamorous tasks. If it comes down to it, face reality and say "hey, this doesn't work. We can work on it in the off-season to make it work, but for now we'd be better off pushing balls"
3) Take your current system and tweak, tweak tweak.