Experimental validation of energy consumption model for the four-wheeled omnidirectional Mecanum robots for energy-optimal motion control

The Mecanum wheel, due to its omnidirectional mobility and heavy-duty transporting ability on the ground plane, is widely applied in the industry. However, the Mecanum wheel trades off energy efficiency for maneuverability. This paper proposes a novel energy consumption model of the four-wheel omnidirectional Mecanum mobile robots. The model is built based on a comprehensive understanding of the kinematics, dynamics, and energy flow of the Mecanum mobile robot. The energy consumption model has been mathematically implemented in MATLAB, and experimentally validated on Auckbot, the Mecanum mobile robot, developed in our lab. Simulation and experimental results show that for omnidirectional motion primitives on the ground plane, the energy consumption model has over 98% accuracy. This proposed energy consumption model is essential to the energy-optimal motion planning for the Mecanum mobile robot.