Holonomic and omnidirectional vehicle with conventional tires

TLDR

The wheel’s design features an offset between the wheel axle and steering axle along the travel direction. The paper introduces a holonomic omnidirectional vehicle that uses conventional tires and an offset steered driving wheel. The authors develop an offset steered driving wheel with independent wheel and steering axis actuation, design a control strategy to overcome its nonholonomic constraint, and validate it through simulation and prototype testing. Experimental tests confirm that the prototype achieves high mobility, demonstrating the vehicle’s holonomic and omnidirectional capabilities.

Abstract

A new type of holonomic omnidirectional vehicle which consists of wheel mechanisms without free rollers but with conventional tires is presented. We first present the concept of a new driving wheel mechanism with a tire in the conventional style such as a rubber tire or a pneumatic tire, an "offset steered driving wheel". The configuration of the wheel has an offset distance between the wheel axle and the steering axle along the direction of wheel travelling. We then describe the kinematics and the control method of the offset steered driving wheel to provide an omnidirectional and holonomic capability for a vehicle by actuating the wheel axis and the steering axis independently. The wheel is a nonholonomic system, and we introduce a control strategy to avoid a nonholonomic constraint. Simulation results of the single driving wheel and the two-wheeled vehicle are performed to test the control method. The concept of offset steered driving wheel is implemented and tested on a prototype of the holonomic omnidirectional vehicle. Experimental results demonstrate high mobility of the vehicle prototype.