Mecanum or 6WD

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Steve_Alaniz

Not to start an argument...

Not to worry. I welcome polite challenges.

..but the white paper actually confirms what I was saying. In fact, it states in the body that "Therefore, assuming no roller bearing friction, the “pushing force” (and speed) of the vehicle is the same in the fore/aft and sideways directions."

The above statement is true, but it doesn't confirm what you said. You said:

in any given direction, mechanums are the equivalent of the torque of TWO motors driving TWO wheels with the rollers locked

The above statement is not true.

So I don't see how you got the 41% unless you are including friction from the bolt/axle but I would be happy to hear how you reached these conclusions.

The 41% increase is a factor of 1.41, which is 1/cos(45), 45 being the angle of the roller.

To summarize:

In the forward direction, the pushing force of a (4 motor) mecanum vehicle is the same whether the rollers are locked or not, assuming that the vehicle is not traction-limited.

If the mecanum vehicle is traction-limited, then the pushing force is reduced by a factor of 1.41. However, compared to TWO locked-roller wheels (which is the comparison you made), this would be 1.41 times larger:

(F/1.41)*2 = F*1.41

If this still isn't clear, I don't mind giving it another shot. Tell me which part doesn't make sense.