Mecanum. What's Best

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

For mecanum drives I happen to be a fan of "halo style" controls

For those of us who don't play video games, could you please state what "halo style controls" means ? i.e. what mecanum function is assigned to each of the joystick axes. Thanks

[Chris is me]

Movement is assigned to one joystick (either forward or strafing, the robot moves in the direction the joystick is pressed), and the other joystick controls rotation / orientation. Much like Halo and other console first-person-shooters.

[buildmaster5000]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

IFor mecanum drives I happen to be a fan of "halo style" controls with independent joysticks for movement and rotation, and I don't even play Halo, but I also happen to be a very big proponent of not using a mecanum drive. I guess it just has always seemed more intuitive to me and whatever random kids drive the demo bot...

I agree with your Chris. Since the student sthat are going to drive the robot generally have played halo, or at least a game similar to it, it makes it very easy to pick up the controls. Also, if someone came up with a better way to control omnidirectional drive systems (mecanum, swerve, etc), I would consider using it. But given the number of people who already know how to use "halo controls," I doubt I would use it.

Side note: my team is prototyping a swerve drive this fall and we are using halo controls for the robot.

[AdamHeard]

I'm a big fan of segregating different degrees of freedom to different joysticks. We currently use arcade drive on a skid steer, with on stick for throttle, and the other stick for turning. A human being is not very good at moving a stick perfectly in one axis.

I feel the same way for using the twist of a stick as the Z, that's just way too much for a driver to do with one hand, after all, he has two.

I believe, as chris described, that translation on one stick, rotation on another, is the way to go. This is the most intuitive, and worked great for us on our prototype crab.

[JamesCH95]

The suspended chassis is not a bad idea for mecanum wheels, but unless you need a lot of suspension travel I would just use it with a flexible chassis.

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I'm a big fan of segregating different degrees of freedom to different joysticks.

Completely agreed. We do the same, and it has worked very nicely.

[joek]

mechanum don't really need any special considerations when mounting, almost any configuration will work, the main difference from tank is in the programming