Abstract
A simple and efficient bottom-roller axle intersections approach for judging the omnidirectional mobility of the Mecanum wheel configuration is proposed and proved theoretically. Based on this approach, a sub-configuration judgment method is derived. Using these methods, on the basis of analyzing the possible configurations of three and four Mecanum wheels and existing Mecanum wheel configurations of robots in practical applications, the law determining wheel configuration is elucidated. Then, the topological design methods of the Mecanum wheel configurations are summarized and refined, including the basic configuration array method, multiple wheels replacement method, and combination method. The first two methods can be used to create suitable multiple-Mecanum-wheel configurations for a single mobile robot based on the basic Mecanum wheel configuration. Multiple single robots can be arranged by combination methods including end-to-end connection, side-by-side connection, symmetrical rectangular connection, and distributed combination, and then, the abundant combination configurations of robots can be obtained. Examples of Mecanum wheel configurations design based on a symmetrical four-Mecanum-wheel configuration and three centripetal configurations using these topological design methods are presented. This work can provide methods and a reference for Mecanum wheel configurations design.
Highlights
Each Mecanum wheel has three degrees of freedom of motion in a plane [1,2], so a mobile robot system consisting of three or more than three Mecanum wheels can achieve omnidirectional motion in a plane only through the coordination of direction and rotation speed of wheels without the assistance of an auxiliary steering mechanism
This study explores a simple and efficient method to judge whether the wheel configurations possess omnidirectional mobility
Mecanum wheel configurations are generated by using the topological design methods
Summary
Each Mecanum wheel has three degrees of freedom of motion in a plane [1,2], so a mobile robot system consisting of three or more than three Mecanum wheels can achieve omnidirectional motion in a plane only through the coordination of direction and rotation speed of wheels without the assistance of an auxiliary steering mechanism. The main contributions of these studies on wheel configuration include: (1) the method of establishing a kinematics equation of an omnidirectional mobile robot is proposed; (2) the method of judging omnidirectional mobility by rank of the Jacobian matrix of inverse kinematics is obtained; (3) the possible configuration of three or four Mecanum wheels is summarized and analyzed and compared. Mecanum wheel configurations are generated by using the topological design methods
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