paper: PID Control Theory for FRC Programming

[JBotAlan]

Originally Posted by tseres

ahhhhh...after looking at a lot of other things....

so i guess PID is basically having software control the robot rather than just the PWM outputs are the same as the joystick values...so there's a layer of software that processes all the input and output data.

Exactly. Programming this way makes you paranoid--you start to trust the code, have a sensor go bad on you, the arm takes off and tries to rip the control system off the robot while destroying a gear box (BaneBots... ) and you don't hit the disable switch fast enough. (true story, times about 50 this season )

But don't let that steer you away from a smarter robot. The pros greatly outweigh the cons. For example, auton becomes easy.

Good luck,
Jbot