Lightweight Reduction Unit
Advisor(s)
Dr. Frank Harwath, North Central College
Location
Room B115
Start Date
26-4-2019 9:45 AM
End Date
26-4-2019 10:00 AM
Abstract
Harmonic gears, which consist of a fixed outer gear with a flexible inner gear that rotates around by a motor, causing the teeth of the gears to contact, can have many functions, but many of these functions cannot be done because the harmonic gears are too heavy to use for smaller machines and too expensive for consumers to regularly use. An inexpensive and lightweight gear could contribute to building a robotic actuator, while keeping the same structure and function as a harmonic gear. Additionally, if a part of the gear were to break, the whole harmonic gear has to be replaced while this gear would have interchangeable parts. In collaboration with Harmonic Drive Co., research is currently focused on finding a suitable control gear for smaller sized robots to compare how well our gear works. Using SolidWorks, we have made the design for an inexpensive, lightweight gear and eventually 3D printed our gear. Our gears worked just as well as the harmonic gear in the same size we used as a control. We decided to take things further and build a prototype of a SCARA robot arm with two of these gears.
Lightweight Reduction Unit
Room B115
Harmonic gears, which consist of a fixed outer gear with a flexible inner gear that rotates around by a motor, causing the teeth of the gears to contact, can have many functions, but many of these functions cannot be done because the harmonic gears are too heavy to use for smaller machines and too expensive for consumers to regularly use. An inexpensive and lightweight gear could contribute to building a robotic actuator, while keeping the same structure and function as a harmonic gear. Additionally, if a part of the gear were to break, the whole harmonic gear has to be replaced while this gear would have interchangeable parts. In collaboration with Harmonic Drive Co., research is currently focused on finding a suitable control gear for smaller sized robots to compare how well our gear works. Using SolidWorks, we have made the design for an inexpensive, lightweight gear and eventually 3D printed our gear. Our gears worked just as well as the harmonic gear in the same size we used as a control. We decided to take things further and build a prototype of a SCARA robot arm with two of these gears.