• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.1235-1240
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• 2006

Previous isotropy analysis of a caster wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot(COMR) has been made under the assumption that the steering link offset is equal to the caster wheel radius. Nevertheless, many practical COMR's in use take advantage of the steering link offset different from the wheel radius, mainly because of improved stability. This paper presents the isotropy analysis of a fully actuated COMR with variable steering link offset, which can be considered as the generalization of the previous analysis. First, the kinematic model of a COMR under full actuation is obtained based on the orthogonal decomposition of the wheel velocities. Second, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the isotropy of a COMR are derived and examined to categorize three different groups, each of which can be dealt with in a similar way. Third, for each group, the isotropy conditions are further explored so as to identify all possible isotropic configurations completely.