Miscellaneous

Showing off our newest Mecanum wheeled robot. Mecanum rollers allow the wheel to be mounted in a standard fashion, but give the robot the capability to move in any direction without having to turn.

Click to expand...

Today I finished my floppy disc robot with mecanum wheels. The robot is powered by four DC Motors and a Raspberry Pi 3. I need to update the motor driver to enable to robot to drive omnidirectional driving manoeuvres.

Click to expand...

Rotacaster Omni-Directional Wheels

Manufactured entirely from engineering resins/polymers, Rotacaster Omni-Directional Wheels are light, durable, impact and corrosive resistant. The injection moulded web-like structure of the 125mm wheel body and over-moulded rollers create a robust, high impact, corrosion resistant wheel, with no pins, inserts or seams.

Rotacaster's unique, durable construction with its high load bearing capacity, stable mounting capabilities and smooth ride quality makes it ideal for tough environments and industrial applications.

Omni-Directional Wheel Benefits

360° manoeuvrability - without turning or swiveling wheels
Better directional control and tracking
Precise positioning - without swivel offset correction
Minimal wheel space/housing requirements
Simple mounting - able to tilt or lever off the fixed wheel mounting
Non marking polyurethane rollers
Load stability - a static centre of load relative to wheel base
Load distribution - the ability to use multiple wheels without swivel offset resistance
Robust - wheel frame and roller axles provide a web-like structure with over-moulded rollers
Tough and rust free - full polymer construction with no steel pins

Click to expand...

We present a robust path following control of skid-steered vehicles at
higher speeds on challenging terrain. First, a kinematic model with
experimentally identified parameters is constructed, in order to
describe the terrain-dependent motion of skid-steered vehicles. Using
the Lyapunov theory, a nonlinear control law is defined, guaranteeing
the convergence of the vehicle to the path. To allow smooth and accurate
motion at higher speeds, an additional linear velocity control scheme is
proposed, which takes actuator saturation, path following error, and
reachable curvatures into account. The combined solution is
experimentally evaluated and compared against two state-of-the-art
algorithms, by using two different robots on several different terrain
types, at different speeds. A Robotnik Summit XL robot is tested on
three different terrain types and two different paths at speeds up to
2.5 m/s. A Segway RMP 440 robot is tested on three
different terrain types and two different path types at speeds up to
6 m/s.
In the video, some representative experiments with the Segway RMP 440
robot are presented.

Click to expand...