For one downgeared application I have in mind, I am both interested in the absolute position of the motor, as well as the downgeared downstream component. In the downgeared case, obviously the absolute position of the motor only gives me the position of the downgeared component up to a multiple of the motor rotations. Id like to avoid endstops and homing sequences. But the primary position encoder should be on my motor shaft, or else flex/backlash in my system would screw with odrives high frequency closed loop control.
Ive seen some other controllers take secondary position encodings to integrate such signals. Is that something odrive supports, or can be made to support? I do not see it mentioned in the docs or via google (did see someone asking the same question a few years ago; but things might have changed since). Ideally odrive could combine both signals, and translate my commands expressed in terms of the downgeared effector, into the relevant motor commands.
Or does it make sense in most applications to simply take the view that this is none of odrives concern? I can add as many additional absolute ppsition encoders as I want, but interpreting their values should be the job of the higher level control loop; not of the odrive (high frequency feedback is only required for the motor itself typically anyway). I think that view makes sense for my application. But just checking if im not missing out on any hidden functionality.