Evaluation of Velocity and Acceleration Effect on Mecanum Wheel Robot Positioning

Abstract In this paper, a Mecanum wheel omnidirectional robotic platform made for taking measurements in harsh and dangerous conditions is introduced. Due to the necessity of highly accurate displacement of the platform for measuring the conditions at the exact measurement point and due to known Mecanum wheel slippage and relatively poor position accuracy, a calibration procedure for minimizing positioning error had to be implemented. For this task, a highly accurate stereographic digital image correlation (DIC) system was used to measure platform displacement. A series of parameters, namely linear maximum velocity and acceleration/deceleration values, were taken into account during the calibration procedure to find the best combination allowing precise movement of the robot. It was found that low acceleration values were the main causes of the robot’s poor positioning accuracy and could cause the robot’s motors to stall. Max speed values proved to have little effect on the robot’s positioning.