Kinematic modelling and analysis of mobile robots with omni-directional wheels

Abstract

This paper focuses on the kinematic modelling, mobility analysis and design of an omni-directional wheeled mobile robots (OWMRs). The composite kinematic models of a wheeled mobile robot (WMR)-a WMR is a collection of the platform and the wheel sub-systems-with a platform equipped with three omni-directional wheels is formulated. The analysis on the mobility of a WMR is carried out using the functional matrix. It is shown that a WMR with three omni-directional wheels has a mobility of three. A prototype of a WMR with three omni-directional wheels are designed, built and tested successfully.