First team with swerve drive?

[ajlapp]

4 wheel swerve with independent steering and drive is called "King Crab."

It may have been coined that by Kaptain Krunch.

Chiefdelphi had this setup in 2001....plus it was a climbing swerve with triangular treads. Making it truly difficult was the motor selection. They had two drill motors, two FP motors, two window motors and two seat motors. I believe this exhausted their motor supply forcing them to deploy pneumatics for the first time since their inception in 1996.

That's tough.

Team 857 built the first "Kiwi" drive in 2002. They also coined the term kiwi....originally to disguise the Killough Drive Base origins. Design secrecy was a little more common back then.

Full disclosure, I was on 857 and coined the term kiwi with my fellow team members.

[EricH]

I don't think there is one, so:

How about a "pod" drivetrain, where each wheel is in a pod and each pod is independent of the others?

BTW, don't just limit it to 4. 16 has done a 3-wheel pod drive for years.

Might not be unlimited rotation, but it sure gets the job done.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Ether

Is there a shorter name, widely understood within the CD community, for a 4-wheel independent-steering and independent-driven drivetrain, with unlimited rotation of the wheels and sensors, and no gaps in the sensor feedback?

If not, could a longtimer here please invent one? It sure would be useful when discussing control methods.

Some systems with most of those features have the name "pod" in them. Given the number of hypothetical features listed, though, I'm tempted to dub it a "spherical chicken drive".

[Chris is me]

Theory Drive, because you'll never get a robot like that in practice