The physics of pushing

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Ken Streeter

For robots with high torque capabilities and very grippy wheels, "lift up" seems to be the limiting factor.

Assuming you're pushing against an identical robot, this limits pushing force F to approximately (W*k-tau)/h, where h is the height (above the horizontal witness line through the center of the wheels) of the effective contact point of the pushing force and tau is the torque on the rear wheels

Note that if F is below the horizontal witness line through the center of the rear wheels, then "h" is negative.

corrected diagram

original diagram