Mechanical Design of "Omni-Ball": Spherical Wheel for Holonomic Omnidirectional Motion

In this paper, mechanical design of a novel spherical wheel shape for a omni-directional mobile robot is presented. The wheel is used in a omnidirectional mobile robot realizing high step-climbing capability with its hemispherical wheel. Conventional Omniwheels can realize omnidirectional motion, however they have a poor step overcoming ability due to the sub-wheel small size. The proposed design solves this drawback by means of a 4 wheeled design. "Omni-Ball" is formed by two passive rotational hemispherical wheels and one active rotational axis. An actual prototype model has been developed to illustrate the concept and to perform preliminary motion experiments, through which the basic performance of the Omnidirectional vehicle with this proposed Omni-Ball mechanism was confirmed. An prototype has been developed to illustrate the concept. Motion experiments, with a test vehicle are also presented.