New steering mechanism for wheeled mobile robots

A new castor wheel mechanism for omni-directional mobile platform is presented. A motion of translation is transformed into a rotation to steer the wheel with the help of a helical path fits into a translation joint and three rollers whose axes are connected to the driving shaft of the wheel. When the path moves in translation it acts on the rollers for steering. The path-roller friction transmission, the wheel kinematics and the maneuverability have been analyzed.