There is a very interesting Wheel Chair base developed
at the Veteran's Administrate Hospital in San Jose based
on this technique.

I saw the prototype about 15 years ago. You could rotate
go forward and sideways or any combination of the three
motions. It was 3 axis joystick controlled. One of the
fun things we did when I visited them was to drive it
down a sidewalk with rotation and string the stick in the
opposite direction. What happened was we were doing pirouettes
as we went down the sidewalk. They at that time had just
patented the base idea.

w..


"M. Adam Davis" wrote:
>
> I couldn't see the video, but I saw the picture of the wheel
> http://www.airtrax.com/products/ATX/whatomni.htm
>
> which reminds me of a palm pilot robot with three wheels mounted equally
> spaced on a circle with their direction of rotation tangential to the
> circle ( imagine nailing three wheels into a disc at the edges of the
> disc - turns it into a lazy susan).  They used wheels that had rollers
> on them which would allow the wheel to slide along the ground sidways
> without moving forward or backward (unless, of course, the wheel itself
> was rolling forward or backward.)
>
> Neat stuff.  I doubt this one is rated for highway speeds, though  ;-)
>
> It's fun to think that people are still intent on improving the wheel...
>
> -Adam
>
> Eoin Ross wrote:
>
> >http://www.airtrax.com/images/airtraxwebdownload.rm
> >
> >This video will have you doing a double-take and wondering
> >"How the @#@# does that work?"
> >
> >http://www.airtrax.com/products/ATX/atx-e3000.htm
> >
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