Odometry and motion planning for omni drive robots

Abstract

Omni drive robots operate by combined motion of more than 2 wheels leading to a force vector in resultant direction and thus enabling the robot to travel in that direction. Omni drive systems are quite efficient from the travelling point of view as compared to non-holonomic (non omni drive) systems, which require stopping at a position and taking a turn. This paper describes a very sophisticated yet simple approach to motion planning of such omni drive robots that would not only decrease the time taken by these robots to perform several tasks, but also increase the efficiency to quite a greater extent. Moreover the system being less complex, it can be implemented on a low cost processing unit and there is no need for high end processors or computers to run such robots. These systems, if developed properly, can bring a quite breakthrough by involving robotics in our daily life commercial applications.