Development of an Omni-directional wheel with differential structure

For improving the strength of Omni-directional wheel and its ability of crossing obstacles, a differential type Omni-directional wheel MY2(Mutual Yoyo) is proposed by adopting the cone side rotation method and differential principle of bevel gears based on the structure of our developed Omnidirectional wheels MY1. The wheel MY2 is composed of two spherical bodies, which use four 90 degree cones with spherical cap to form an approximate spherical body to realize the passive rotation and actuation for the omni-directional kinematics. Also, the differential type of MY2 wheel has a closed spherical structure with four cones with spherical cap. Four passive shafts of the form the skeleton of wheel, which decomposes interaction force of four cones on the shaft and effectively increases the strength of wheel. Experimental results validate that the differential type of Omni-directional wheel improves the Omnidirectional wheel carrying capacity and obstacle crossing ability.