Has there been a team that has made a swerve drive train with an independent suspension? I suspect a team has tried it. Any pictures out there?
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Stryke Force has a suspension on their swerve. It’s only minimal suspension. You can read about it here
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It’s more to just keep all modules in contact with the carpet rather than go over bumps.
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We have been playing with alternative ways to join tube for an mk4i chassis, and one way is to mount the modules to channel that is attached to the insides of the tubes. I wonder if creating some polycarbonate channel by cutting off one 2" side of 2x1 polycarb tube, and then using that with this kind of design would provide any valuable suspension? It seems like shocks from hard hits would be at least partly absorbed by the polycarb bending.
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Yeah I was thinking for going over rougher terrain. So was thinking like a front end suspension on a car.
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I’ve pondered a suspended swerve (2 inch travel) but if it’s an FRC chassis, weight always locked up my brain. To get that much travel the thought always went towards an A arm and when trying to incorporate legal bumper mounting (no articulated bumper mounts) you end up with a lot of material. Also an A arm, which would act more like a swing arm, means the wheel doesn’t always sit flat on the floor which would upset our software folks trying to control it in auton. Then there’s the lack of a need for it in FRC and that’s when my desire stopped which is too bad because it would have a SUPER HIGH coolness factor.
If it’s non FRC, then that’s a different story…
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That is pretty cool. I think I do remember seeing that before.
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If you go way back, like 2004 ish. I want to say 111 had something to move a swerve over a significant bump. There is video of this working as a compilation of “frc engineering” or something on YouTube somewhere.
That does look like 2004.
But it wasn’t for going over a bump per se–it was to climb onto a 6" tall step. 1114 had something similar IIRC? The idea that several teams had was to just raise their frame then pull wheels up as needed until they were on–the linear motion here is almost certainly powered.
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It never worked. Bearing L/D ratio was too big and it bound under load
This isn’t quite what you were asking for, but I always thought it would make a fun offseason project:
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Definitely interesting. I love seeing what other have been thinking of. I understand that its probably not a practical solution. But love seeing others thoughts on some type of suspension even for traction.
In 2010 team 207 did an independent suspension like a giant RC car. It was really neat and very well made (in typical Metalcrafters fashion), but didn’t end up performing too well if I remember correctly.
This thread got me thinking and I have done a VERY quick bit of CAD work to layout my idea. The bumpers are 6in long down each side and fixed to each swerve module. Ignore the shocks going through the brackets. This is only half of the robot and would require this system to be mirrored on the other side of the cross bar. This is more of a proof of concept.
Yes, the wheels will scrub as the suspension cycles. I have no idea how strong this would be or how stable this platform would be as well. The handling/driving would be interesting as well.
My question really is: Would this violate “R101 - Frame Perimeter must be fixed”?
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@bchina
This is similar to the kind of thing I was originally thinking of. I just never push it to the level that you did here. Thanks for sharing this is great work on your part. Again I am not sure how realistic this is for FRC but was just a concept I had spinning in my head lately.
Would it be possible to move the suspension struts inboard, and then add an additional, much smaller rail to mount the bumpers? That might solve the articulated frame perimeter problem.
This is a great visual by the way.
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