Object-oriented approach to the construction of an omni vehicle dynamical model

Abstract

Omni vehicles are equipped with omni wheels, which are built with rollers along the rims. This study implements several steps to develop a dynamical model for an omni vehicle multibody system. The dynamics of a free roller that moves in gravity and features a unilateral contact constraint with a horizontal surface is first modeled. Contact tracking is performed with the use of a simplified and efficient algorithm. An omni wheel model is then developed and debugged. A whole vehicle model is subsequently assembled as a container class that comprises arrays of objects as instantiated classes, which are in fact models of omni wheels and joints. The dynamical properties of the resulting model are illustrated through numerical experiments.