interestingengineering.com: Airtrax have made a set of wheels that can make any vehicle move in any direction without the need to turn the wheels themselves. And maybe you will be like; wait a second, how is that possible?
Well it is possible with a type of wheel invented way back in the 1970’s by a man called Bengt Ilon.
3 comments:
This are some really great wheels. I’ve used similar wheels for robotics before, but nothing that can deal with this variety of obstacles. These definitely seem like they’d be very helpful for situations where a vehicle needs to drive off road on in an area with a lot of obstacles and uneven surfaces. As cool as they are, they would probably be overkill for most situations. I’m curious which industries/ groups of people will tend to use these wheels a lot. I’m also curious what the lifespan on these wheels is given the amount of abuse they would likely take, and how consistent the wheels are in terms of not getting stuck due to the obstacles shown in the video. Honestly, even though the video spent a long time showing all of the things the wheels can go over and through, my guess is that the ability for it to go in any direction and make tight turns is probably the most useful feature about these wheels.
Back in the day when I did robotics in high school we would use these wheels on the drive system. The concept behind the product is surprising simple when you brake it down but when you look at them in use it will blow your mind. The only way to describe it is like a hovercraft. It almost looks it is floating across the grown and I remember the first time I saw them being used. I turned to my uncle and said we need to get use a pair of these.
Although they might be very cool, there is some drawback to the design. In the terms of robotics we would sometimes have difficultly when we were hit by another machine. Because the one wheel is made up of several smaller wheels it makes it much easier to slide around. Now I’m not saying that a forklift will have this problem but it is something to think about. That all being said I think that this is a very cool product and I hope to find a use for it in a project I work on in the future.
These wheels are so cool! I don’t really care about these kind of things normally, but after having to deal with so many casters, smart and dumb, broken and non broken, any article that says a wheel can move in any direction makes me perk up my ear. And this one doesn’t even turn! Yet somehow it can move at angles and even side to side. That honestly blows my mind. It doesn’t seem like these will be on the market too quickly, as it mainly mentioned this in regards to naval academy use, but imagine these wheels on a genie or a sky lift! That would be truly revolutionary in the lighting world. The biggest benefit is the amount of maneuverability this provides with such efficiency, and if put onto a sky lift with power it could most likely be operated from the driver in the bucket, eliminating the need for two people!
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