The OmniMate mobile robot-design, implementation, and experimental results

This paper introduces a new mobile robot for hazardous environments and for industrial applications. The robot, called OmniMate, has full omnidirectional motion capabilities, can detect and correct odometry errors without external references, and offers a large 183×91 cm (72×36”) loading deck. A patented, so-called compliant linkage avoids the excessive wheel slippage often found in other omnidirectional platforms. This paper provides an overview over the mechanical and kinematic design of the robot, as well as over the complex, three-level onboard control system. Also explained is the unique, patented odometry error correction method, called Internal Position Error Correction (IPEC). The foremost advantage of the OmniMate with IPEC over conventional mobile robots is that the OmniMate’s odometry is almost completely insensitive to even severe irregularities of the floor, such as bumps, cracks, or traversable objects. With conventional mobile robots such irregularities can cause large odometry errors with potentially catastrophic effects (i.e., mission failure), thus mandating frequent external registrations to correct for possible odometry errors. The OmniMate, on the other hand, can travel reliably over larger distances than conventional mobile platforms, thus requiring much fewer external corrections.