Practical gyro usage in autonomous

[BigJ]

Hi all,

One of my major goals for this year is to establish a foothold in the realm of closed-loop autonomous mode (read: not doing dead reckoning again).

I have a good idea of how to use the gyro and feedback loops to turn the robot to certain angles, but I am curious about how other teams use it in practice. If your team uses a gyro for autonomous mode and could answer any or all of these questions, I would be very happy!

• When do you start/reset your gyro? At the start of autonomous or at some other time?
• How do you set your robot up initially on the field? Is everything relative to your starting line-up, or do you do something different?
• Do you use your gyro for anything other than autonomous (aside from teams using holonomic field-centric control)?

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by BigJ

• When do you start/reset your gyro? At the start of autonomous or at some other time?

We construct the gyro on startup, so that the calibration is done early. We make sure not move the robot while the robot is starting up, so that the calibration is not screwed up. We then reset the gyro right at the start of autonomous. The driver has a display of the gyro value, so that they can tell if the calibration was screwed up.

Originally Posted by BigJ

• How do you set your robot up initially on the field? Is everything relative to your starting line-up, or do you do something different?

Everything relative to starting position. This gives the coach the ability to tweak things by lining the robot up a little differently (which is much faster then getting the programmers to change something).

Originally Posted by BigJ

• Do you use your gyro for anything other than autonomous (aside from teams using holonomic field-centric control)?

We also use it in conjunction with the camera (both in autonomous and in teleop). The gyro responds much faster then the camera. We use the camera to determine how far we need to turn, and then use the gyro to turn that angle, and then check again.