What exactly is velocity control… I saw jpearman post of it but I don’t quite understand what it is.
thanks
Velocity control is a method of using programming to control how fast the motors are spinning, specifically on the flywheel. Instead of simply giving the motors a power value, which depends on battery voltage, A velocity control program uses feedback from an integrated motor controller to vary the motor power. JPearman describes a TBH, or take back half, algorithm. PID, or Proportional Integral Derivative, is another velocity control algorithm. Search the vex forums for examples/details.
There are lot of great VEX specific resources on PID control. Here’s a few of them:
So traditional control loop makes the robot get to a location but the speed that happens is unimportant. Velocity control rather than control the location controls the speed.
what velocity control does, is keep something moving (in the case of a fly wheel spinning) at a constant spped. that’s it, just make a wheel spin at a constant speed
Well not really. It makes a mechanism spin at a desired speed. Getting up to speed is just as important, not just maintaining it.