We have been studying an omnidirectional driving gear mechanism that can generate thrusting force in an arbitrary direction on one surface, which may be flat or curved. This omnidirectional gear is driven by spur gears that are perpendicular. When one spur gear rotates to drive the omnidirectional gear, the other slides between the teeth of the omnidirectional gear and vice versa. In this paper, we introduce gears with passive rollers to reduce the frictional resistance with a mechanism including smooth rolling motion of conical or flat passive rollers, which can boost the power transmission efficiency of the omnidirectional driving gear system. We also confirmed another useful function of this gear with passive rollers as a worm wheel to transmit power from a worm gear with higher energy efficiency than an ordinary worm wheel.

This video shows multiple omnidirectional driving gears to realize smaller size and weight than the ordinary X-Y stages. The examinations of different materials and sizes of the gear teeth to improve the performances of the omnidirectional driving gears are the main progress of this paper from our previous reports [1].