Differential steering

Differential steering is a way to control how a vehicle moves by using two separate wheelsets that can spin at different speeds. Imagine you have a toy car with four wheels and you want to make it go forward or backward, or turn left or right.

To make the toy car go straight, all the wheels need to spin at the same speed. But if you want to turn, one set of wheels needs to spin faster than the other set. This is what differential steering does – it allows the wheels on one side of the car to spin at a different speed than the wheels on the other side.

Let's say you want the toy car to turn left. That means the wheels on the left side need to spin slower than the wheels on the right side. When you do this, the toy car will start to turn to the left. This is because when the wheels on the left side spin slower, they create less traction than the faster spinning wheels on the right side. This difference in traction causes the car to turn to the left.

The same idea applies when you want the toy car to turn right. You make the wheels on the right side spin slower than the wheels on the left side. This creates less traction on the right side, causing the car to turn right.

Similarly, if you want the toy car to go forward, both sets of wheels should spin at the same speed. But if you want it to go backward, you need to make both sets of wheels spin in the opposite direction, meaning one set spins backward while the other set spins forward.

Differential steering is commonly used in vehicles like cars, trucks, and even robots. By controlling the speed and direction of each wheelset, we can control how the vehicle moves, making it go straight, turn left or right, or even move backward. It's like a secret code that tells the vehicle precisely what to do!