Novel Drive Wheel System Based On Spinning Sphere

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."

Comments

Thats looks great

[MichaelSmith]

How about making a robot with four legs. The foot on the bottom of each leg would be a wheel like this. Servos which control the attitude of the legs would also control the direction the wheel operates in.

Re:Thats looks great

[wagnerrp]

Would you paint them blue, with a big pod on the back for a person to ride in?

Needs a hard floor.

[Animats]

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.

Re:Needs a hard floor.

[Interoperable]

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.

Re:Needs a hard floor.

[NFN_NLN]

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.

Re:Needs a hard floor.

[bejiitas_wrath]

What about the wheels on the vehicles in Snow Crash that where composed of many spokes sticking out that automatically adjusted to fit the terrain ahead? They where called Smart-wheels and they provided good traction at high-speed. I am not sure if this is possible yet, but would this work any better, assuming the spokes could be strong enough to support the vehicle and its rider.

Re:Needs a hard floor.

[Urkki]

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.

Fortunately, there's a solution: one world, one people, one slab of asphalt!

Re:Needs a hard floor.

[timothyb89]

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.

I've worked pretty extensively with mechanum wheels - essentially omniwheels with the smaller wheels at a 45 degree angle to the main wheel. Arranging four of them provides the same degrees of freedom as the example shown with two of these HOG wheels. Mechanum wheels work well and move quite fast, and I've yet to see a surface where they don't work - but they're costly, heavy, and wear quickly, not to mention the pretty enormous power requirements. Because of these limitations, for hobbyist robotics, they're simply not practical.

For many of the smaller projects I've done, traditional drive systems were slow and not nearly as useful as an omnidirectional (3 DOF) system - and without the ability to easily use something like omniwheels or mechanum wheels due to various constraints, HOG wheels would be a godsend. They provide most of the benefits of the traditional omnidirectional drive systems with very few hitches - and you'd be surprised how often the hard and flat surface requirement isn't an issue (or, in many cases, applies to traditional drive systems as well).

Not Novel

[mentil]

The video embedded in TFA contains the engineer who created this saying that it was invented about 100 years ago, but nothing came of it and the tech was forgotten. He did rediscover it independently, however.

Re:Not Novel

[robot_love]

Wait, so you're telling me he just re-invented the wheel?

iRobot cars?

[MrQuacker]

So, the funky cars they used in the iRobot movie with Will Smith, this re-invention now makes them possible? I am curious to know how well it works on rougher surfaces, like potholes, sand, or gravel.

Re:Awesome prototype!

[NFN_NLN]

The friction between the power and pavement surfaces is dependent on how much that wheel is worn down. While driving the response you get as the wheel ages will change.

Just like a traditional wheel!

Cute toy

[jklovanc]

It seems interesting but I have a few concerns (some have been stated in other posts but I would like to get them in one place).
1. Uneven surfaces; With such a small surface contact it is easy to lose traction.
2. Control. It seems that one can change direction at will but it seems difficult to do it accurately and more difficult to stop the device.
3. Soft surfaces; if the hemisphere is going at a constant speed would it dig into a sift surface when stopped? Sure you can stop the motor but that means you would have the same acceleration characteristics of a conventional wheel.

I would have liked to see it on bare concrete doing a slalom and stopping at a designated point.

If the audience thinks it's not funny

[symbolset]

Then it's not funny.

Re:Awesome prototype!

[Jstlook]

Well, yes and no. The difference is in a traditional wheel as you change speed that response doesn't change. In this system, the feedback you get will be dependent on the speed you're going. In a traditional wheel as the response changes (i.e. normal tire wear) there is really no appreciable change in steering or friction.

The added issue is that your velocity *and* direction are dependent on where the tire contacts the driving surface. That really isn't an issue with a flat surface, but I don't typically drive on a dried desert lake bed. On a bumpy surface you'll experience unintended vast changes in speed, direction, and taste (namely if you vomit).

It looks awesome for robots in a controlled setting is what I'm saying, but not for typical day-to-day driving .. at least not yet.

1988 Toyota Olympic Ideas winner

[poodlediagram]

This has already been turned into a personal vehicle some years ago. It won the 1988 Toyota Olympic Ideas competition and ran on perpetually spinning Chinese woks. The best link I can find is

http://books.google.com/books?id=1M3e82yGmZMC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27#v=onepage&q&f=false

Perhaps someone can find a better picture or video.

Re:Awesome prototype!

[bar-agent]

The difference is in a traditional wheel as you change speed that response doesn't change. In this system, the feedback you get will be dependent on the speed you're going. In a traditional wheel as the response changes (i.e. normal tire wear) there is really no appreciable change in steering or friction.

The added issue is that your velocity *and* direction are dependent on where the tire contacts the driving surface. That really isn't an issue with a flat surface, but I don't typically drive on a dried desert lake bed. On a bumpy surface you'll experience unintended vast changes in speed, direction, and taste (namely if you vomit).

This, I think, is where computer controls and feedback can help. Something to adapt wheel control for differing terrain, wear, angles, and contact points.

The inventor needed none of that for this video; he controlled the gimbal directly from the remote.

Re:Awesome prototype!

[Renraku]

Actually, I think this would be good for robots as they could adjust their parameters to counteract the bumps and stuff really quickly. Maybe a drive-by-wire system on a car where the computer does all the hard stuff and you just point the car where you want it to go.

I could really see this being used in high speed robotics applications, imagine a ground-based sentry drone with this screaming down the road.

Re:Awesome prototype!

[Jstlook]

It's true, he needed none of that. First off, he used new wheels, which have no appreciable wear. Second, he certainly wasn't precision driving, which is where it would be critical.

It's a prototype and it's downright awesome, but in terms of useful application, I'm just skeptical. The technology is similar to what you'll find in a Constant Variable Transmission (CVT), which has the added benefit of not having to contact an uneven surface. That means even wear throughout the lifetime of the apparatus, and better steering control *without* resorting to complicated computer feedback controls.

I guess sometimes I just retain an old viewpoint - good technology is stuff that will work as intended even when it's broken.

Re:gimbaledl ???

[maxwell demon]

A gimbaledl is a pivotedled supportedl that allows the rotationedl of an objectedl about a single axisedl. Isn't that obviousedl? :-)

Re:Awesome prototype!

[nukenerd]

I don't get all this worry about accuracy and precision. Wheel/tyre wear and surface undulations only matter if you need to position this robot by dead reckoning. Dead reckoning is a bad idea anyway except in machine tool or laboratory applications.

Get real. This type of drive system would be for applications like vacuuming floors and moving stuff in warehouses. Its positioning would be determined by external feedback, like lines on the floor in a warehouse or ultrasonic echoes from walls. Other factors would be irrelevant to positioning.

As for the guys worrying about loss of contact and friction (someone raised "omni-wheel" designs, with wheels composed of little wheels arranged around a big wheel) what is the problem? In TFA' photo I see a three wheeler (one HOG wheel and two conventional idlers - though it could be developed to three HOG wheels only). How can a three-wheeler lose tyre contact ?

Say this thing hits a curb

[SmallFurryCreature]

Spinning top, you ever played with these toys? What happened to them when they hit a curb like a book or something? Right, they bounce off. Why? Because all of sudden it gains traction with what can be thought of as a wheel.

This ball wheel works as an infinite gear because by tilting it, the controller decides exactly how large a wheel (a ball is an infinite number of circles/wheels, each a bit smaller/larger then its neighbour, stacked on top of each other) contacts the floor. If the ball is spinning direction is parallel to the floor (if the ball doesn't deform) it wouldn't move because there is no forward motion. Tilt it and you are essentially making contact with an ever larger wheel. If the RPM remains the same, the larger the wheel the greater distance must be travelled. That it works is clear and predictable. It makes perfect sense.

But a bump on the road would suddenly cause a far greater wheel to make contact, greater wheel means greater speed and BAM, you got a difficult to control vehicle.

This thing doesn't just need a flat surface, it must also avoid any curbs. And what if it hits a crack in the surface, what if its gets grip on its on opposite sides of the spinning ball?

Doesn't mean this won't have its uses but they will be limited.

Re:Say this thing hits a curb

[nukenerd]

Yes, I understand the physics, but I was really countering some guys here who seem to think the wheel contact requires laboratory precision and are worrying about slight wear (needing computer compensation!!) and loss of contact (how???).

I agree this drive system is never going to be an off-roader. Also, many posters here seem to be floating the idea of it being used for cars - forget it. But as I have said in aother post here, the ideal use for this drive is fork-lift truck type applications, where tight manoevering is required, and, incidentally, the floor is flat.

But I don't think it will be as sensitive to undulations and kerbs as you and others seem to think. Most "bumps" in the floor/road are actually at quite small angles unless they are actual holes with rims. Also, a spinning top reacts violently (eg shoots across the room) when it hits the wall because its whole mass is spinning, so it has a lot of rotational momentum to be converted into linear momentum. However, this HOG vehicle has only a small proportion of its mass spinning, so contact with a kerb will probably just result in a nasty jolt and some rubber left behind. For warehouse use, just put guards around the wheels (as the prototype has).

You are worried about cracks?! I think we are at cross purposes about the scale of this thing. I assume that the prototype is a model, but even then I do not know its scale. For real world use (eg the warehouse vehicle) I envisage HOG wheels being hemisperes of about 400mm diameter. You would have to find an extremely run-down warehouse to have cracks in the floor that big!

Re:Scuffmarks?

[cboirum]

LOL you have no idea! Luckily I made good friends with the janitor who works the hall outside the robotics lab. The new prototype uses a very smooth polyurethane wheel just for this reason. It really decreases the acceleration but doesn't mar up the floor as much. It also makes the effect of small bumps and/or cracks in the ground surface almost non-existent.

Re:Awesome prototype!

[jbengt]

Sorry for being pedantic, but it's Continuously Variable Transmission.

Active deforming wheels

[Animats]

assuming the spokes could be strong enough to support the vehicle and its rider.

Telescoping tubes work a lot better in cartoons than in real life.

I have seen one robot with a deforming wheel design which transitions from a wheel to a flat tracked drive. Their slogan is "wheels when possible, tracks when necessary.") It was fast, agile, showed up once at one trade show, and hasn't been seen much since. Nice mechanical engineering.