Omnidirectional drive systems are a great way to maneuver your robot in tight spaces. Mecanum wheels combine the simplicity of a differential “tank” style drive system with the omnidirectional maneuverability of omni-wheels.Here’s a video of a Mecanum-driven electric wheelchair. Not a robot, but the video does a good job of showing how the wheels work.http://auto.pege.org/2006-ever-monaco/rollstuhl.wmvIf you want to buy some Mecanum wheels (and you should), head on over to AndyMark and check them out.http://andymark.biz/mecanum.htm

And for the Wikipedia junkies out there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecanum_wheel

This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.