Planar Omnidirectional Crawler Mobile Mechanism

-Reduction in the Disturbance Degree of the Ground during Switching Direction-

Abstract

We propose a planar omnidirectional crawler mobile mechanism for the mobile basis of search and rescue robots. One of the advantages of the planar omnidirectional crawler mechanism is that it allows the robot to move in any direction without causing large slippage on soft ground because it does not require a turning motion when the robot switches its traveling direction. This study realized a configuration with two left and right unit crawlers that enables a turning motion. By using this prototype machine, we investigated how the turning and translational motions of the crawler mechanism exert influence on the imitating soft ground by measuring the flow of sand on the horizontal surface. As a result, the translational motion was quantitatively shown to switch the travel direction with less degree of disturbance to the road surface than the turning motion.