Tire width for imporved traction of a robot?

Question

I'm trying to build a robot that drives on the ground and occasionally encounters a wet surface. I need to improve traction to handle the wet surface. My immediate intuition leads me to simply widen the tires, but knowing F = uN, I don't see how surface area of the tire helps any? I know increasing the coefficient of friction or the normal force will improve traction but could someone enlighten me as to what effect a wider tire would or would not have. Thanks.

Answer 1

as you suspect in this case width alone does not affect traction. When the tire rolls onto the wet area the tire needs to sink into the water to reach the hard surface below. A proper wet surface tire has more vacant space between the tread that allows the water to move out of the way of the tread so it can reach the hard surface below.
if your robot has trouble on wet surface you can get a tire from the RC car industry that is meant for mud or wet surface racing. Or you can add weight if you have the freedom. or if you can't do either of those trade one normal tire for two or three narrow tires. the overall width is not much more, but the water can go up between the tires.