Basic steering using dual motor controller

Starting a design for a rover unit using 2 wheel chair motors with typical setup of a saber tooth controller and arduino microcontroller. I get how I can use “tank steering” using the mixed mode and writing code that just moves one motor vs the other and that will rotate the rover to point in different directions.

My rover will be traveling down a long driveway with curves and will use video processing to keep it centered. What I’m not seeing is how to make small left-right movements with the motor controller. Do I have to handle this in my arduino code to set different speeds of the 2 motors for small turning motions? The saber tooth docs show a “left-right” in the second channel in some modes and I’m wondering if it has the functionality to handle differential speeds to steer.

Hello @DaveInPA ,

Welcome to RobotShop community.

It’s best to soften the response for the turns as you have mentioned.

You can do this with Switch 5: Exponential response, you can find it in the manual page 11.

Let us know if you need further assistance.

Sincerely,

Great thanks!

Is the Exponential mode only available for RC control or can it be used in serial? Also…would i need to change to linear mode if i do need to make more deliberate turns like around a car or other large object?

Hello @DaveInPA,

Thank you for your reply.

For better assistance, we recommend contacting the manufacturer directly:
[email protected]

Let us know if you need further assistance.

Sincerely,