Re: My Senior design project - a "Swamp Thing" tracked vehicle clone
With an open diff, once one track spins it becomes the path of least resistance for nearly all engine power. The rest of the machine would come to a halt if pushing through deep snow or up a hill. If Garauld had a locker or at least a limited slip, then yes the track that didn't slip would start the machine turning toward the one slipping. Applying turning brake to the slipping side would accomplish a similar effect as an LSD in theory. Analogous to how traction control works in modern vehicles.
As to a solution, wheel tachometers (speedometers, whatever you'd want to call them) would help for sure. Depending how fancy you want to get, a pair of old bicycle cable driven speedometers would work although you'd have to train your brain how to interpret them instantaneously. You seem quite comfortable with electronics, so I'd probably go down the track of a microcontroller with hall effect sensor or similar on each axle, then light up a series of LEDs on the dash to show the relative speed of each track...maybe a couple green ones in the center when track speeds are within 5-10%, red or yellow ones to each side of the green that would light up depending which track is spinning.
I'm sure there are other mechanical ways to do it too. Will be interested to see what you come up with.