Triple Rotacaster commercial industrial omni wheel

Omni wheels or poly wheels, similar to

Mecanum wheel The mecanum wheel is an omnidirectional wheel design for a land-based vehicle to move in any direction. It is sometimes called the Swedish wheel or Ilon wheel after its inventor, Bengt Erland Ilon (1923–2008), who conceived of the concept wh ...

s, are

wheel A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction wi ...

s with small discs (called rollers) around the

circumference In geometry, the circumference (from Latin ''circumferens'', meaning "carrying around") is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. That is, the circumference would be the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to ...

which are perpendicular to the turning direction. The effect is that the wheel can be driven with full force, but will also slide laterally with great ease. These wheels are often employed in holonomic drive systems. A platform employing three omni wheels in a triangular configuration is generally called Kiwi Drive. The

Killough platform A Killough platform is a three-wheel drive system that uses traditional wheels to achieve omni-directional movement without the use of omni-directional wheels (such as omni wheels/ Mecanum wheels). Designed by Stephen Killough, after which the pl ...

is similar; so named after Stephen Killough's work with omnidirectional platforms at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and ...

. Killough's 1994 design used pairs of wheels mounted in cages at right angles to each other and thereby achieved holonomic movement without using true omni wheels. They are often used in intelligent robot research for small autonomous robots. In projects such as

VEX Robotics VEX Robotics is a robotics program for elementary through university students, and a subset of Innovation First International. The VEX Robotics competitions and programs are managed by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation (RECF). In ...

Robocup RoboCup is an annual international robotics competition founded in 1996 by a group of university professors (including Hiroaki Kitano, Manuela M. Veloso, and Minoru Asada). The aim of the competition is to promote robotics and AI research by offer ...

and

FIRST Robotics For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (''FIRST'') is an international youth organization that operates the ''FIRST'' Robotics Competition, ''FIRST'' LEGO League Challenge, ''FIRST'' LEGO League Explore, ''FIRST'' LEGO Leagu ...

, many robots use these wheels to have the ability to move in all directions. Omni wheels are also sometimes employed as powered

casters A caster (or castor) is an undriven wheel that is designed to be attached to the bottom of a larger object (the "vehicle") to enable that object to be moved. Casters are used in numerous applications, including shopping carts, office chairs, to ...

for differential drive robots to make turning faster. Omniwheels are often used to allow for movement on the horizontal axis on a drivetrain, as well as forward and backward movement. Usually, this is achieved by using an

H-drive An H-drive drivetrain is a system used for heavy off-road vehicles with Six-wheel drive, 6×6 or Eight-wheel drive, 8×8 drive to supply power to each wheel station. H-drives do not use axles but rather individual wheel stations, usually carried ...

. Omniwheels combined with conventional wheels provide unique performance properties, such as on a six-wheeled vehicle employing two conventional wheels on a center axle and four omniwheels on front and rear axles.

History

The wheel was first patented in 1919 by J. Grabowiecki. A variant of the wheel was patented by Josef F. Blumrich in 1972. Blumrich claimed that the design is described in the

Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. According to the book itself, it records six visions of the prophet Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, during t ...

as a component of a spacecraft created by extraterrestrial life, which is why the wheel is sometimes jokingly called the "Ezekiel wheel". ''

The Spaceships of Ezekiel ''The Spaceships of Ezekiel'' (1974) is a book by Josef F. Blumrich (March 17, 1913 – February 10, 2002) about a spaceship that was supposedly observed by the prophet Ezekiel, written while the author was chief of NASA's systems layout branch o ...

'' describes his process for the "discovery" and recreation of the Omni wheel as well as a traveling craft and its docking station. A recent invention is the so-called Liddiard Wheel, which claims to be a superior omnidirectional wheel.

Applications

File:FU-Fighters RoboCup Midsize Robot 2005.jpg,

Robot soccer A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, control may be ...

File:Robotino mit sick scanner.jpg,

Robotino Robotino is a mobile robot system made by ''Festo Didactic'', and used for educational, training and research purposes. Operation Robotino is based on an omnidirectional drive assembly, which enables the system to roam freely. The robot is c ...

, used for educational, training and research purposes. File:'Port Dogs' keep cargo moving 101103-F-II154-010.jpg, Omni wheels on the freight deck of a

Boeing C-17 The McDonnell Douglas/Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft that was developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) from the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas. The C-17 carries forward the name of two ...

allows the positioning of cargo

References

External links

PPRK
- A commercial holonomic drive system developed by Carnegie Mellon University utilizing poly wheels.
Airtrax
- commercial vehicles using

mecanum wheel The mecanum wheel is an omnidirectional wheel design for a land-based vehicle to move in any direction. It is sometimes called the Swedish wheel or Ilon wheel after its inventor, Bengt Erland Ilon (1923–2008), who conceived of the concept wh ...

s with poly wheels. {{DEFAULTSORT:Omni Wheel Wheels

History

Applications

See also

References

External links