Development of a mobile mechanism using a spherical tire

摘要

This paper is about the mobile mechanism which moves on a flat surface. We implemented a spherical tire in it. Because spherical tire is so useful for two-dimensional wheel. And we used four omni-directional wheels to drive the spherical tire. Therefore, the robot can move on a flat surface with only one spherical tire. The robot uses a basketball as the spherical tire. To use a basketball is easy-to-build in the robot, low in price and robust in several environments.