ROLLMOBS, a new omnimobile robot

Typical mobile robot structures (e.g. wheelchair or carlike, ...) do not have the required mobility for common applications such as displacement in a corridor, hospital. office, ... New structures based on the "universal wheel" (i.e. wheel equipped with free rotating rollers) have been developed to increase mobility. However these structures have important drawbacks such as vertical vibration and limited load capacity. This paper presents a new type of omnimobile platform using an original combination of spherical wheel and universal wheel. This structure will improve the robot capabilities, i.e., load capacity, surmountable bumps and vibrations.