Chainless Mecanum Drive

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I would still claim that it is not as simple and straightforward but it is an interesting solution to the problem. Thank you.

For robot-centric steering, it is that simple. For field-centric steering (where pushing away on the joystick moves the robot away from the driver's station regardless of robot orientation) it can get quite complex.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I would suggest that a slide drive config that wants at least 1 CIM for something else use 1 CIM + 1 FP in the drivetrain instead of just 1 CIM. Acceleration is helped a pretty good amount.

Do you mean for the sideways component? If so, that's a good point. A crab-style middle wheel would put 3 CIMs accelerating forward at a maximum, 2 minimum (which is acceptable under 11fps or so). The sideways movement would only ever have 1 CIM maximum, which may be a problem since should have the same speed as the forward-only wheels -- if the forward component is 12fps or more, then the single CIM moving sideways would cause some sluggishness.