Swerve Drive

舵轮Advanced

A wheel module that both drives and steers on its own, letting the whole chassis move in any direction.

A swerve drive module puts a drive motor and a steering motor on the same wheel unit: the drive motor spins the wheel, and the steering motor rotates the whole wheel assembly around a vertical axis to point it any direction. A chassis built from two to four of these modules lets the controller work out each wheel's speed and angle independently, so the robot can translate sideways, rotate in place, or do both together. Compared with Mecanum wheels, swerve modules carry heavier loads, tolerate rougher floors, and slip less, but the mechanism and control software are more complex and more expensive. They're common on heavy-duty AGVs (automated guided vehicles) and warehouse robots, and on the chassis of some wheeled humanoid or hybrid robots.

ExampleChassis in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) commonly use four swerve modules, letting the robot translate and rotate at the same time.

Also called: Steerable Drive Wheel, Swerve Module, Steer-and-Drive Wheel
Related: Mobile Base (Chassis) · Mecanum Wheel · Omni Wheel · Differential Drive Base · Automated Guided Vehicle · Wheeled Humanoid Robot
Sources: Swerve Drive Kinematics - WPILib Docs