ИСТИНА

Vehicles with flexible ability to maneuver in any direction desired just almost resting at initial position are usually equipped by the so-called omni-directional wheels. Omni-wheel is defined as one having rollers along its rim. Formalisms previously developed for the multibody dynamics description are applied to develop the omni-wheel dynamical model. This model being class component in frame of an object-oriented modeling environment is possible to be embedded into the model of the whole rolling vehicle of any type. Two possibilities for the roller relative orientation are usually being implemented in the engineering solutions for the omni-wheels: (a) case of the roller axis belonging to the wheel plane; (b) case of the roller axis being angled with respect to the plane mentioned. Case (a) turns out to be the simplest one and contact tracking algorithm for the floor - roller contacting provides the fastest dynamical model. Case (b) evidently being more flexible consumes more time for computations. At the same time its implementation remains much more efficient in compare with an approach based on the general formulae of contact computations. These algorithms are possible to be combined with the simplest and fastest point-contact model which runs regularly in the process of motion simulation. Moreover algorithms outlined above demonstrate their reliability and impact-free manner of rollers switching while the rolling process. Implementation of these algorithms is described, and computational experiments demonstrating procedures of the model numerical verification are presented.