Hardware

Mecanum Wheel

A Mecanum wheel is a wheel fitted with passive rollers mounted at 45 degrees around its circumference, allowing a vehicle with four such wheels to translate in any direction and rotate in place by varying individual wheel speeds. Invented at the Swedish company Mecanum AB in the 1970s, it provides holonomic motion on flat, hard floors, at the cost of efficiency, payload-dependent slip, and sensitivity to floor debris.

Why it matters for physical AI

Omnidirectional bases simplify mobile manipulation by decoupling base positioning from orientation, letting planners servo the chassis sideways under a reach target instead of executing multi-point turns in tight aisles.