When the drive train use traction wheels, and you only have space for one tracking wheel, is it better to use horizontal or vertical tracking wheel?
I believe you would want to use one vertical tracking wheel.
Since you have traction wheels, I am assuming your robot doesn’t drift right or left. The horizontal tracking wheel would be used to detect your robot’s left/right drift, but you have traction wheels, therefore the drift should almost be 0.
I’m not really that experienced with tracking wheels, so other people will have better suggestions on best mounting practices.
Here is a discussion I read on odometry pod placement when I was looking into it for my team.
Horizontal, usually, but there becomes less need for it if you run non drift drive.
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