Omni Wheels Survey

[Max Lobovsky]

Originally Posted by RogerR

this is the main reason that i (personally) don't like "traditional" holonomic setups. mecanum/ilon wheels (such as the ones on these robots) solve this problem to a degree, since it allows you to harness the power of all 4 motors whenever the bot is moving in a direction perpindicular or parrallel to that of wheel rotation. this setup is weakest when it is moving diagonally when only two of the wheels are being powered. in addition, since the rollers overlap, and are rounded, there isn't as much bumping present as there is in the traditional omni-wheel.

I believe you can have all your motors driving in one direction in a 4 wheeled holonomic system.

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for some reason the spaces arent staying between the two walls of my robot so i put o's in the middle

when that robot is moving "up" on the page, all the motors will be applying force in that direction. The one thing i can't seem to figure out is wether 100% of their force is in that direction or 1/sqrt2 of it is in that direction because the wheels are at 45deg angles to the direction we are measuring force in. Now basic physics would say that yeah, its 1/sqrt2 because the force is being applied at a 45deg angle, but the odd thing is, when you get out the other xy component vector, it doesnt seem to be applying a force when the robot drives straight assuming the omniwheels have no significant friction to lateral movement. Now im sure no one got that, but if you did, help me cause im really stumped by this.