This is a project we use every year that is generated from the base template and lets us create custom driver profiles

• version: 2024.2.2 (runs with WPIlib 2024.2.1 and associated vendor deps; and a05annexRobot 2024.2.2)
• status: first used for FRC 2023 Charged Up, updated for 2024 Crescendo
• comments: We first started building custom driver profiles for the 2021 Infinite Recharge at Home competition (The COVID-19 competition year). The competition included 3 obstacle courses that were both manually driven and autonomously driven. We started to use driver profiles in driver training so drivers could start with a controllable robot that had limited speed, acceleration spin rate and spin acceleration - and then step those up in a personalized way as they became more proficient driving the robot.

An FRC robot is a large and massive machine that can go quite fast and accelerate and decelerate at very high rates - so it is an intrinsically uncontrollable machine that a driver needs to learn to control. Driver profiles map the driver's movements of the Xbox control sticks to the response of the robot to those actions. More specifically, they create a path from a beginning, occasional, or demonstration driver (the robot is highly limited in both speed and acceleration) to the competition driver, who is encouraged to 'put the pedal to the metal'.

A driver profile is a file of mapping parameters that map the Xbox control stick to the behavior of the robot. These files are in the src/main/deploy/drivers directory of the project. Anything in the src/main/deploy directory is loaded onto the Roborio when robot code is deployed, so they can be loaded when the robot initializes. We use physical switches on the robot to set which driver profile will be read at robot code start, and if the switches have not been installed we default to the programmer driver profile, which, because programmers are notoriously bad drivers, limits speed and acceleration so most young children could non-destructively control the robot.

How they work is that we dedicate (by default) 2 switches to driver selection, which gives use 4 driver profiles (you could easily change this if you need more). We use profile 0 as the default benign profile, and the next 3 as driver profiles (we have never had more than 2 competition drivers). And there are the actual mapping functions controlled by the parameters in the profile file - which are discussed later.

The short answer is:

1. create an entry in the driver list;
2. create a corresponding profile file (just copy the programmer file as a start);
3. load this project on the robot;
4. set the switches to load the correct driver profile on robot start;
5. start, enable, and drive the robot; instruct the operator how you want you drive parameters adjusted while you are driving
6. save your profile for future use.

NOTE: once you have a profile, you can tune it in the future. During the 2021 year it was common that for a driving session a driver would load their profile, dial back the max speed and acceleration for a few practice runs, and then work on moving everything as far forward as possible while still completing the tasks.

OK, lets cover those steps in detail.