Swerve with a twist

[lovelj]

If you want holonomic omnidirectionality (swerve is by definition non holonomic, the system discussed here is likewise non holonomic), here is a link to a fact sheet on a system we developed that uses powered casters which provided holonomic omnidirectionality using conventional tires.

http://web.ornl.gov/sci/ees/eesrd/res/OCILOW.pdf

Its a slight twist on the swerve (e.g. in-line orientable wheels) and the conventional car steering topology discussed here. It's the third option for a powered steering/rolling system. OCILOW - Off-Center In-Line Orientable wheels (e.g. a fancy way of saying powered caster). By having the steering axis offset from the rolling axis and behind the wheel rather than next to it, the steering axis causes a velocity vector that is orthogonal to the rolling axis. Coordinated control of the steering and rolling enable instantaneous velocity vectors in any direction (e.g. holonomic) using conventional tires. You get very cool catenary type coordinated motions of the wheels, no skid while transitioning instantaneously from forward to sideway motion. The system is very robust and is highly redundant. You can still have full holonomic control with only two wheel pods active, the one or two being passive casters. It had a very cool double enveloping worm gear to drive the rolling axis. The challenge is the controls. If you have 4 active pods, you have 8 motors to control 3 degrees of freedom (x, y, theta). However, there is a closed for solution for the inverse kinematics, solving for the instantaneous velocities for all rolling and steering motors giving a desired Cartesian velocity vector (x_dot, y_dot, theta_dot). The cool part is that, no matter what the wheel pod configuration (if you look at the picture, we intentionally got the steering axes all different), it can still instantaneously move in any direction.

My group actually developed the split hub spherical wheel in the mid 1990s which was similar to the mecanum. We built a weapon loading system for the Air Force but the tires would wear out fast. It had a 7 DOF force reflecting arm on a holonomic omnidirectional platform. One person could load a 2000 lb weapon on the wing of an aircraft feeling the wedging and jamming when loading the weapon on the wing pylon. The holonomic motion was necessary for navigating under the wing. Unfortunately, like the mecanum, you have point, rather than surface, contact with the ground so your traction is low and tire stresses are high (not good when handling a bomb). If you really want/need holonomic omnidirectionality and you want to use conventional tires, it's the only way.