Improved controller and wheel class.

Jason Allen <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.science.robotics.playerstage
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Over the past year I have used Player and Gazebo in some of my thesis research.  That research is now complete, and published.  I'd like to contribute as a way of saying "thank you" for the work others have done.

During my research, I developed an improved steering controller and wheel class based on the ones originally contributed by Jordi Pollo.  They may not be suitably generic, because my controller was used to evaluate some very basic, fundamental issues with the use of Player and Gazebo to simulate four-wheeled vehicles and implements some functionality needed for that evaluation.  For example, the improved controller scales forward and reverse acceleration and rate of change of the steering angle using the playerv utility to better simulate a real vehicle.  The improved controller also constrains these values to eliminate rollover.

However, I was able to implement a four-wheel drive vehicle with steering that conforms (generally) to Ackermann steering geometry and collapse several wheel classes into one class.  I was able to achieve stability at high speeds (up to 100 kph or 60 mph), in simulation, by eliminating the anchoroffset declaration, which was causing the front wheels to "bind" when fully powered.

My modifications were against revision 8533 of Gazebo.  I've been monitoring the list and it appears the current revision of Gazebo is some hundreds of changes removed from revision 8533.  I'm not sure my modifications would not themselves require modification at this point.

Does the Player Project have any interest in these changes?  If so, what would be the best way to submit them?

Regards,
J. C. Allen
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