So I’ve gotten into a debate with my co-captain about how to control a Mecanum Drive system.
He thinks 1 joystick for driving around will be very intuitive, and therefore better.
I think, while not quite as intuitive, 2 joysticks will end up being better because there’s more option for control and with practice, just as easy to control.
Neither of us have built mecanum drive before and I was wondering if any teams who have could lend some insight from their experience.
Thanks in advance.
Some teams use one 3 axis joystick (x,y,twist). Others use 2 joysticks (one for translation, other for rotation.
2022 used 2 joysticks last year on an Xbox controller. The left stick was for translation, the right was for rotation, and the triggers were for turbo mode. It resulted in a very intuitive driving style with very high fidelity.
I know I would personally prefer the 2 stick method, simply because whenever I move a 3 axis joystick around, it always twists a little bit.
Program it so several ways are available, selected by the operator. Let the best scheme emerge. You need to turn driver input into translation/rotation commands anyway, so it’s just a set of different transformations from which to choose.
If you know who’s driving your robot, ask them what they want. It’s not so much about what makes sense for everyone on the team, it’s about what the driver thinks is easiest.