Easiest/best gyro available

FIRST
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My team is looking for a gyro to buy. We want one that is accurate, easy to use, and widely used so if we need help we can actually get it. Any suggestions are awesome

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For FRC gyros, the two most used are the Pigeon 2.0 ($199) and the navX2 MXP ($108)

If budget isn’t an issue, I would recommend the Pigeon 2.0 IMU from CTRE, its more accurate then the navx2, and it experiences less drift. However, even though Pigeon is more accurate, this increased accuracy really only matters if you are trying to implement field-relative swerve or more complex odometry systems. If $200 is too much for your team, the navx2 is still a really solid option, and will provide enough accuracy for most tank drives and simple auto routines.

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Thanks! we plan on doing field relative swerve so this is good to know

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It’s not available yet but Redux will be releasing the CanAndGyro before kickoff.

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I would take a look at these two threads. From my understanding Pigeon and navX are both good but have different advantages and disadvantages. My team uses the navX2 Micro because it’s easy and accurate.
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/pigeon-2-0-vs-navx2-mxp/417278
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/navx-2-0-vs-pigeon-2-0/401469/

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It looks like last year your team had a tank drive, so congratulations on making the change to swerve! I would say the Pigeon 2.0 is worth the extra cost, having a reliable gyro we didn’t have to worry about made our switch to swerve last year a lot easier. I know a lot of teams are able to successfuly implement and use navX gyros, but we experienced some drifting issues in 2022, which made us wary about using the navX for swerve.

Just for some extra information, what brand of swerve/motors do you plan to use for your swerve drive?

I can’t wait to try this new gyro out, its definitely something we are going to be testing over the offseason.

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Just saying, but we were able to use field oriented swerve with an OG navX gyro (not navX 2) and exhibited absolutely no problems with no noticeable accuracy differences. You don’t need to spend the outrageous $200 for a pigeon IMU.

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adding on that we’ve been running navx2 swerve for the past 2 seasons (and plan to continue) without much issues. If you don’t have the extra $100 to spare they definitely work very well

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There is also the ADIS 16470 available on FIRST Choice ( FCbyAM - IMU, SPI (ADIS16470) )

This works great from a simplicity standpoint: it mounts right on the roboRio with no extra wiring needed, and is simple to access in software.

I don’t know how it compares to the others in terms of accuracy and drift.

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Drift is quite good, we’ve used this every now and then with good success.

FWIW the base chip costs $300, so hopefully that says something about it’s performance.

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A few more points re: NavX vs Pigeon -

  1. While the programming is similar, they track positive angles in different directions (clockwise vs counterclockwise) by default. That means if you’re switching from one to the other, do not forget to make code adjusments.

  2. if your motor controllers are CTR (e.g. TalonFX, TalonSRX), you can use Pigeon in hardware PID routines via auxiliary PID sensor source. You cannot do it with NavX (in other words, if you have NavX, you will have to use software PID everywhere). Not necessarily a big deal - depending on its use.

  3. While you can plug in NavX into Rio and not worry about wiring, Pigeon2 connects to CAN. That means extra wires.

Traditionally our team uses Pigeon because most of our motor controllers are CTR (both drivetrain and auxiliary). Our swerve prototype is set that way as well (we’re switching to swerve this year). But for teams that primarily use NEOs, NavX will be a cheaper choice, and since you will have to use software PID with it anyway, it works just fine with field-oriented swerve (we have configured and tested that setup for our sister team that has NEO-based swerve, and NavX as main IMU).

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Adding to this, having your NavX on the Rio also means how and where your Rio is mounted matters.

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I wouldn’t say that $200 is outrageous. Things in FRC are expensive, each swerve module costs $600 - $900 once you include prices of motors/encoders, so $200, while a lot, isn’t an unreasonable price.

Good point, there was a recent CD thread talking about the importance of RIO mounting (especially with a gyro on it).

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Depends on what context you look at it. For many teams $200 is pocket change. I am just saying the markup CTRE puts on the components that makeup the pigeon (IMU and microcontroller with CAN transceiver) is pretty ludicrous.

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Yes, with NavX, location of RIO matters. However, unlike Pigeon, NavX can be configured to change axis reporting in hardware (e.g. for vertical mount your pitch can become your yaw, and nothing needs to be adjusted in software). In other words, as long as it’s mounted either 0 degrees to horizontal or 90 degrees to horizontal plane, you will be able to use “native” PRY reporting. With Pigeon you cannot really do that, though in sofware, of course, with Sofware PID you can choose using something like Pitch as Yaw.

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If you use the navX2 micro with the USB connection, you can separate the gyro from the Rio location. Avoids I2C and CANbus traffic also.

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