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ROBOTEQ has released a technical article and demo video which describes how to build an omnidirectional robot with mecanum wheels.
Mecanum drives are a type of holonomic drive base which applies the force of the wheel at a 45 degree angle to the robot, instead of on ones of its axes. This allows the robot to move in any direction, while keeping the front of the robot pointed in a constant compass direction.
By varying the combinations of wheel rotations via control algorithms, a robot designer can achieve a range of various motions.
The Roboteq guide outlines the information required to effectively control the mecanum drive system, and how to easily implement them using Roboteq controllers’ networkability using CAN bus and Microbasic scripting features.
As each mecanum drive wheel must be driven independently, two dual channel controllers must be used – in the case of a very large robot, four single channel controllers may be required.
CAN allows the two or four controllers to operate as a single four-channel drive. The guide advocates the use of the RoboCAN protocol over CANbus for greater ease of use and flexibility.
The guide also provides an example of how the controller’s Microbasic scripting can be used to capture and translate the joystick commands, and resolve the equations needed to drive the wheels. Algorithm implementation is simplified thanks to mathematic and trigonometric functions built into the language.
Interested engineers and designers can read the entire guide, watch the demo video and download the PDF here.