G+_George Kozi Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 so.... the wheel can, and has been reinvented... Originally shared by Worthsome The Mecanum wheel A design for a wheel which can move a vehicle in any direction. It is sometimes called the Ilon wheel after its Swedish inventor, Bengt Ilon, who came up with the idea in 1973 when he was an engineer with the Swedish company Mecanum AB. It is a conventional wheel with a series of rollers attached to its circumference. These rollers typically each have an axis of rotation at 45° to the plane of the wheel and at 45° to a line through the centre of the roller parallel to the axis of rotation of the wheel. By alternating wheels with left and right-handed rollers, in such a way that each wheel applies force roughly at right angles to the wheelbase diagonal the wheel is on, the vehicle is stable and can be made to move in any direction and turn by varying the speed and direction of rotation of each wheel. Moving all four wheels in the same direction causes forward or backward movement, running the wheels on one side in the opposite direction to those on the other side causes rotation of the vehicle, and running the wheels on one diagonal in the opposite direction to those on the other diagonal causes sideways movement. Combinations of these wheel motions allow for vehicle motion in any direction with any vehicle rotation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecanum_wheel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Mark Del Monte Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 Tech has been around for a while. Why don't we see more of them? Gotta be some down sides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Joe Morrison Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 As I understand the efficiency is pretty bad and the rollers wear pretty fast because most of the motion is scuffing rather smoothly rolling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_David Pick Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Watch star trek 2009. That forklift makes an appearance in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Brenton Stringer Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Mythbusters use one too.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_David Pick Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Roger Hammer Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts