Overcoming kinematic singularities for motion control in a caster wheeled omnidirectional robot

Omnidirectional planar robots are common these days due to their high mobility, for exam-ple in human–robot interactions. The motion of such mechanisms is based on specially designed wheels, which may vary when different terrains are considered. The usage of actuated caster wheels (ACW) may enable the usage of regular wheels. Yet, it is known that an ACW robot with three actuated wheels needs to overcome kinematic singularities. This paper introduces the kinematic model for an ACW omni robot. We present a novel method to overcome the kinematic singularities of the mechanism’s Jacobian matrix by performing the time propagation in the mechanism’s configuration space. We show how the implementation of this method enables the estimation of caster wheels’ swivel angles by tracking the plate’s velocity. We present the mechanism’s kinematics and trajectory tracking in real-world experimentation using a novel robot design.