Mecanum Wheel Traction

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

The reason why mecanum drives can't push hard is not because the wheels have poor traction, but because each wheel pushes diagonally... in order for the robot to go in a straight line the directly opposing forces cancel, leaving a single resultant vector.

In the forward direction, the "single resultant vector that they leave" has the same magnitude as the forward force of a standard wheel.

The reason mecanum drives can't push hard is that the reaction force of the floor on the roller, being aligned at 45 degrees, is greater than the forward vector... so mecanum wheels reach the traction limit before standard wheels do.

[klmx30302]

Our team has a set of mecanum wheels with these rollers on them. They are the same as normal rollers but with rubber spacers on the sides.