Abstract
A new design of holonomic omnidirectional vehicle and a laser guidance technique for the vehicles are presented. The holonomic mechanism allows the vehicle to maneuver in an arbitrary direction from an arbitrary configuration on a plane. This significantly simplifies control problems and improves positioning accuracy. A fundamental method of obtaining omnidirectional motion with holonomic constraints on the floor, using a mechanism with spherical tires, is described. Each vehicle can be viewed as an XYθ positioning table with an infinite workspace. For accurate guidance and positioning, a laser guidance technique is developed. A prototype system is designed, built and tested. Upon experiments, omnidirectional motion of the vehicle and the effectiveness of the guidance method were confirmed.
