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Parallax Position Controllers as speed controllers? — Parallax Forums

Parallax Position Controllers as speed controllers?

rbtyingrbtying Posts: 5
edited 2013-01-07 09:00 in Robotics
Is there any way to use the Parallax Position Controllers (the ones that come with the motor wheel / mount kit) as velocity controllers? I'm planning to use them with ROS, and currently am setting extremely high position values with maximum speeds to try and imitate speed control. This is pretty clearly suboptimal, and I feel that all of the hardware is definitely there to make this a good speed controller as well.

Are there perhaps hidden API commands or alternative firmwares I can try?

Comments

  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,566
    edited 2013-01-06 12:36
    This is basically a speed controller based on a tachometer... Yes, this is possible. You need to read the position controller as a series of pulses within a given amount of time and convert that to RPM. If the desired RPM is less than the reported RPM, then increase the PWM duty cycle, otherwise decrease the PWM duty cycle.
  • rbtyingrbtying Posts: 5
    edited 2013-01-07 09:00
    I was actually hoping for a way to have the Parallax Position Controller (#27906) run the PID loop. I know how to write PID control algorithms myself, but it seems to me like it would be fairly wasteful to take intelligent motors and run them as basic ones. Is there any way to do this?
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