[team2039] Re: Drive Train going over Bump

  • From: Adam Czerwonka <Adam.Czerwonka@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "'team2039@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <team2039@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 14:08:22 -0600

I’m not sure until we test the robot how this will go.  It may be able to get 
stuck.  My gut says it will go over ok.
The problem with omni wheels is that they are designed to slide sideways.  If 
we don’t use the omni wheels on one side, then the robot can’t turn… so the 
omni wheels give poorer traction in exchange for maneuverability.

From: team2039-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:team2039-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Mary Johnson
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:51 PM
To: 'team2039@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [team2039] Re: Drive Train going over Bump

Here is a question from the non-engineer... is there any chance of the four 
wheel narrow orientation drive getting stuck with one set of wheels on one side 
of bump and the second set on other side?  Or is this what omni wheels are 
supposed to correct?

>>> On 1/9/2012 at 1:38 PM, in message 
>>> <3DF86F824940F1478BBB61678F47B79F01F0A439@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:3DF86F824940F1478BBB61678F47B79F01F0A439@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>,
>>>  Adam Czerwonka 
>>> <Adam.Czerwonka@xxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Adam.Czerwonka@xxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hello Team,

Based on the great discussions I heard about drive trains this weekend, I 
decided to look at how different drive trains would perform while going over 
the bump.  I put together scale drawings of the drive trains (with a few 
assumptions made).

For the 4 and 6 wheel designs, I assumed we have 8” wheels, for the tank tread, 
I assumed an angled tread pattern on both sides with 4” rollers (probably 
doesn’t impact the results if we change the roller size and keep the overall 
tread pattern).

Here are my observations.  I invite everyone to include their comments, 
questions, or new ideas so we can repeat this experiment with other designs.

A brief discussion of the physics:

You’ll notice that I have some of the designs reaching very high angles before 
they tip over and drive down the other side of the bump.  This was determined 
based on principles of physics, the robot will only tip (toward the front of 
the robot) when the center of gravity passes over the pivot point, or when 
forces from the wheels or treads cause the tipping force.  This means that this 
performance is impacted by the location of the center of gravity (CG) of the 
robot.  The center of gravity is the average location of the weight of the 
robot.  The point at which the weight of the robot is balanced in every 
direction.  I placed the center of gravity in the middle of the frame, but 
above the frame since there will be a bunch of hardware sticking above the 
drive frame of the robot.

For just about all of these drive train designs, it would be ideal to have the 
center of gravity very low to the ground, and near the front of the robot too 
for others.  I assumed a somewhat central location not knowing the robot design 
yet.  Much of the upper part of the robot will be designed based on functional 
constraints, so we may have limited flexibility in where the center of gravity 
is located.  We can probably improve upon the center of gravity that is shown 
in the images, but the question of how much will not be answered for quite a 
while.  One thing is for certain, the Center of Gravity cannot be located at 
the edge of the robot, since there is no weight beyond this point to balance 
out the robot weight.  My advice would be as we look at robot designs, we can 
assume that we might be able  to improve these worst case numbers by a 
conservative (that means small) amount, but it might be challenging to move 
this location by much more than 6” to 12”.  For scale, the robot length in the 
narrow orientation as drawn is 34”.

I looked at the following 4 designs:  6 wheel narrow orientation, 4 wheel 
narrow orientation, 4 wheel wide orientation, tank treads

Ranked from most likely to tip over to least likely to tip over we have:

4 wheel wide orientation *almost guaranteed to tip over
Tank Treads* high probability of tipping unless the center of gravity is very 
low and very close to the front of the robot
6 wheel narrow drive *medium probability of tipping – might tip if we get hit 
by another robot
4 wheel narrow drive* low probability of tipping

Ranked  from biggest landing shock on the robot to smallest landing shock on 
the robot we have:

Tank treads *unless the cg (center of gravity) is very close to the front, this 
design practically has to jump over the bump, large impact on landing (16  inch 
drop at front of bot)
6 wheel drive *medium impact (8” drop at front of bot)
4 wheel wide *low impact 4” drop at front of robot (high probability of tipping 
over when coming down)
4 wheel narrow * low impact  4” drop at front of robot

Hopefully this will get people thinking of other configurations, and what the 
impact on speed, maneuverability, pushing power, and bump performance will mean 
for the robot design.

Happy Designing!

-Adam

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