Mechanism and Running Modes of New Omni-Directional Vehicle ODV9

ODV9 is a newly designed nonholonomic omni-directional vehicle. ODV9 is proposed for an indoor mobile platform. An indoor mobile platform is required to move in narrow spaces freely and to travel bumpy road surfaces in some measure. ODV9 has four wheel modules, with each wheel module incorporating one motor, one brake, and one wheel. The coupling of steering and driving, that results in errors and tire slippage, does not occur ODV9 intrinsically because each wheel module has only one motor. Compared with other ODVs, the advantages of ODV9 are not limited to the simplicity of its mechanism. Benefiting from using a normal type wheel equipped with a tire, ODV9 is capable of moving in various environments. In this paper the mechanism and the various running modes of ODV9 are discussed, and some experimental results are shown.