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Novel Drive Wheel System Based On Spinning Sphere

Posted by timothy on from the spin-do-not-sit dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Bradley University student has built a mobile robot that uses a hemispherical omnidirectional gimbaled, or HOG, drive wheel. It consists of a black rubber hemisphere that rotates like a spinning top, with servos that can tilt it left and right and forwards and backwards. The HOG system delivers an amount of torque directly proportional to the tilt of the hemisphere, allowing the robot to move incredibly fast nearly instantaneously."

3 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Needs a hard floor. by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a cute idea. It assumes a single point of contact with the ground, and thus requires a flat, hard floor. This is limiting.

    The various "omni-wheel" designs, with wheels composed of little wheels arranged around a big wheel, have a similar problem. The size of the little wheels, not the big one, determines the terrain-handling limits of the vehicle.

    1980s robots tried to do everything by wheel odometry. Back then, most of the software was too dumb to plan moves given steering limitations, so omnidirectional drives were popular. Robots got a lot better when people stopped building robots with complex wheels and no suspension, and went to more ordinary wheels with off-road type suspensions.

    1. Re:Needs a hard floor. by Interoperable · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh /., why must you be so negative? It doesn't have to be useful for every application in robotics to be extremely awesome.

      It only requires one motor rotating at a constant velocity and two actuators; that's hardly a complex wheel. The extreme simplicity should make it useful in a number of applications and hobbyist designs. It will, however, probably leave little rubber smudge marks on your floor.

      --
      So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
    2. Re:Needs a hard floor. by NFN_NLN · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's a cute idea. It assumes a single point of contact with the ground, and thus requires a flat, hard floor. This is limiting.

      You could add as many points of contact as you like as long as they are synchronized. Plus, I hear hill billies can slap chains on them for better traction in the mud.