Omnidirectional wheeled mobile robots: wheel types and practical applications

Omnidirectional wheeled mobile robots (OWMRs) have gained increasingly popularity because they can move into any direction, while their orientation can be pointed to any angles. Thus, the aims of this paper are to update a literature review of OWMRs and to categorise interesting research papers according to wheel types, wheel arrangements, and their practical applications. Wheel types are divided into special omnidirectional wheels and steerable conventional wheels. Advantages and disadvantages of each type of OWMRs are also pointed out in order to help robotic designers to choose an appropriate wheel mechanism. Then, practical applications are presented to show the usefulness of OWMRs.