Influence of rolling friction on the controlled motion of a robot wheel

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the influence of rolling friction on the dynamics of a robot wheel. The robot is set in motion by changing the proper gyrostatic momentum using the controlled rotation of a rotor installed in the robot. The problem is considered under the assumption that the center of mass of the system does not coincide with its geometric center. In this paper we derive equations describing the dynamics of the system and give an example of the controlled motion of a wheel by specifying a constant angular acceleration of the rotor. A description of the design of the robot wheel is given and a method for experimentally determining the rolling friction coefficient is proposed. For the verification of the proposed mathematical model, experimental studies of the controlled motion of the robot wheel are carried out. We show that the theoretical results qualitatively agree with the experimental ones, but are quantitatively different.