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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."

1 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. 1988 Toyota Olympic Ideas winner by poodlediagram · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.