Omni-directional Wheel Roller Support Simplification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional omni-directional wheels require complex and expensive bearing arms with special curved shapes to support rollers, complicating the manufacturing process and increasing costs.
Innovation Solution
An omni-directional wheel design featuring rollers with a truncated conical shape and support members that allow for simple mounting and rotation, eliminating the need for curved support arms by alternating large and small diameter rollers on a single circumference, with support parts positioned between rollers facing each other to reduce clearance and simplify the structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If bearing arms are designed with special curved shapes to fit recessed portions of adjacent rotary bodies, then the rollers can be properly supported, but the manufacturing complexity and cost increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the complex curved recessed portion design from the bearing arm and relocates it to the roller itself. The roller is designed with a recessed portion at its end face, while the bearing arm uses a simple flat structure with a support surface. This extraction eliminates the need for complex curved bearing arms while maintaining the same functional outcome of properly positioning and supporting the roller.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of making the bearing arm conform to the roller's shape through complex curved designs, the invention inverts the approach by making the roller conform to the simple bearing arm structure. The roller's end face is designed with a recessed portion that matches the simple flat support surface of the bearing arm, reversing who adapts to whom and greatly simplifying the bearing arm manufacturing.
2Reliability
If curved bearing arms are used to support rollers, then proper roller positioning is achieved, but the overall device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The complex curved geometry is extracted from the bearing arm structure and transferred to the roller component. The bearing arm becomes a simple flat support element, while the roller incorporates the recessed portion design. This extraction reduces device complexity in the support structure while maintaining positioning accuracy through the roller's own geometric features.
3Ease of manufacture
If clearance is maintained between adjacent rotary bodies, then manufacturing tolerance is easier to achieve, but lateral movement requires more force
Solution Approach 1:
The invention uses the recessed portion design as a geometric copying mechanism where the roller's end face recess precisely mirrors the support surface geometry. This precise geometric copying allows the rollers to be positioned very close together with minimal clearance, reducing the level difference and improving lateral movement efficiency while still accommodating manufacturing tolerances through the designed recess geometry.
Data Source
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AI summary
The omni-directional wheel includes first support parts (20) and second support parts (21) which support large-diameter rollers (30) and (31) and small-diameter rollers (40) and (41). Each of the first support parts (20) is disposed at a position where the first support part is held between a pair of the large-diameter rollers (30) and (31), while each of the second support parts (21) is disposed at a position where the second support part is held between a pair of the small-diameter rollers (40) and (41). The large-diameter rollers (30) and (31) and the small-diameter rollers (40) and (41) are disposed such that their outlines are arranged on a single circumference, with a part of the small diameter-side end face of the small-diameter rollers (40, 41) partially inserted in the recessed portions (30c, 31c) of the large-diameter rollers (30, 31).