Forward Kinematic Analysis and Simulation of Reconfigurable Four-Wheeled Omni-Drive Mobile Robot

Robots that are flexible, reconfigurable and universally adaptable and capable of performing various tasks in constrained and dynamic workspaces are in high demand. In this research general forward kinematic model has been developed and analyzed for two different geometric structures of reconfigurable four wheeled omni drive mobile robot. These two structures named Rhombus and Swastik model can reconfigure their geometry by varying design parameters as per task need. Six predefined motion M1 to M6 named forward, rotation, forward left turn, forward right turn, left yaw and right yaw motion are considered for performance evaluation for eleven different configurations C1 to C11 of each model. A MATLAB based simulation is carried out using time step of 0.1 second for 10 seconds duration, to evaluate the robots' trajectories, velocities, and angular orientations. Simulation result demonstrates, rhombus model has high stability and uniform motion due to symmetric wheel placements. It shows a nearly constant resultant velocity of 50 mm/s almost for all configurations and motions. In contrast, Swastik model has higher resultant velocity of 111 mm/s for M3 and 86 mm/s for M2 due to wheel offset arrangements which enhances maneuverability. The results show a clear trade-off between stability versus maneuverability across two models. In addition, geometric reconfiguration has minimal effect on linear motion but significant impact on turning and angular motions. The proposed model comes up with validated forward kinematic modelling and simulation framework for reconfigurable four wheeled omni drive mobile robot. It enhances the performance of geometry-depending robots.