Step climbing omnidirectional mobile robot with passive linkages

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a holonomic omni-directional mobile vehicle with step-climbing ability. This system realizes omni-directional motion on flat floor using special wheels and passes over the step in forward or backward direction using the passive linkage mechanism. Our key ideas are the following topics. First topic is new omnidirectional mobile mechanism which consists of special wheels and passive linkage mechanism. Second topic is new passive linkage mechanism which can change its body configuration easily when the vehicle passes over the step. Third topic is wheel control reference derivation based on the body configuration, which changes passively during step climbing for reducing wheel slippage. Last topic is wheel control method which keeps the rotation velocity coordination among the wheels for reducing wheel slippage and increasing the step-climbing performance. We verified the effectiveness of our proposed method by the computer simulations and experiments. Utilizing our proposed mechanism and control systems, the vehicle has both omnidirectional mobility and step overcoming function. Furthermore, our developing vehicle can pass over the 128[mm] height step using the wheel which radius is 66[mm]. Its performance is three times larger than one of general wheeled vehicle.