Design and construction of continuous alternate wheels for an omnidirectional mobile robot

Abstract Many types of omnidirectional wheels with passive rollers have gaps between rollers. Since these gaps cause a wheel to make discontinuous contact with the ground, they lead to vertical and/or horizontal vibrations during wheel operation. In addition, the radii of passive rollers are related to the height of a bump an omnidirectional wheel can surmount. In this research a new design of the alternate wheel is proposed. Because this wheel makes continuous contact with the ground and has alternating large and small rollers around the wheel, it is termed a continuous alternate wheel (CAW). In this paper a design procedure is also presented to determine the optimum number of rollers, the radii of rollers and the inside inclination angle of an outer roller for given design specifications. The CAW based on this design is compared to the existing alternate wheels in terms of design. Finally, an actual continuous alternate wheel is constructed to verify validity of the design guidelines. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.