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Originally Posted by FizMan
I'm trying to develop a drive system that can move freely in all directions for next year. And I rummaged through the whitepapers, and it the concept of using four omni-wheels, two in either direction, would work.
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Okay; that's a pretty bad drawing; but you get the idea. By running the two sets of wheels at different speeds, you can strafe your robot in different directions. This means you'll have a seperate gearbox/transmition/motors for each set of wheels, correct? Say you have two motors per set of wheels. Does that mean you can really only apply two motors worth of power in any one direction? So if you were up against a robot that had a tank drive with four motors of power in one direction, you'd only have two to their four? Now I'm just learning the basics of these engineering principles, so tell me if I'm way off.
And again; with that design, if a robot pushed yours, you'd really only have two wheels of traction to push back with?
Looking at a few designs of omni-wheels that use the metal spinners for the treads (rather than the plastic ones) what's the possibility of those damaging the carpet if you're in a pushing match and your wheel slips?
Also, what's the advantage of using omni-wheels if not for all-direction travel? For example in the above robot picture; you have the two omni-wheels in the front. You said it was so you could turn in high gear easier; so the omni-wheels provide half decent forward-backward traction and little lateral traction. Are there any other benefits?
Thanks for your time answering these. 
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Ah, you're referring to Patrick's 3DOF whitepaper right? After driving the Cornell robocup robots for a while with an XBOX controller, I have to say that such a design is just plain awesome for being mobile. If someone tries to push you, there are so many ways to move. Google Cornell Robocup and check out some of their videos for a demonstration. Patrick is also updating the Cornell team's status at the American Open in New Orleans (their first match should've been 30 min ago) in this thread:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=28159
In addition, our team has used omniwheels in 2002 and 2003... search these forums for pics of them (and descriptions) or PM me. They've worked beautifully. We switched to tank treads this year.