DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING OF MECANUM WHEELS BY 3D PRINTING FOR MOBILE ROBOT

Abstract

3D printing is an advanced manufacturing technology used to fabricate parts by layering materials directly from CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data. FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) method is one of the most popular methods for engineering applications. On the other hand, mobile robots that move omnidirectionally with mecanum wheels have been widely used in industrial production, storage, transportation, and social services. However, the disadvantage of the mecanum multi-directional wheel is the complicated design structure, many individual parts, which make it difficult to fabricate. The article presents the design proposal for manufacturing by 3D printing (Design for Additive Manufacturing) for the mecanum omnidirectional wheel completely by FDM 3D printing technology, using PLA (Polylactic Acid ) plastic as the fabrication material. The wheel is designed by the method of modeling, simulation on the computer combined with the experimental method. Then, the mecanum wheel fabricated by 3D printing was tested for application to mobile robots. Experimental results showed that the 3D printed mecanum wheels met the requirements of flexible and efficient movement when following complex trajectories.