Abstract
On the eve of Human-Robot-Interaction (HRI) becoming customary in our lives, the performance of HRI robotic devices remains strongly conditioned by their gearboxes. In most industrial robots, two relatively unconventional transmission technologies—Harmonic Drives© and Cycloid Drives—are usually found, which are not so broadly used in other industries. Understanding the origin of this singularity provides valuable insights in the search for suitable, future robotic transmission technologies. In this paper we propose an assessment framework strongly conditioned by HRI applications, and we use it to review the performance of conventional and emerging robotic gearbox technologies, for which the design criterion is strongly shifted toward aspects like weight and efficiency. The framework proposes to use virtual power as a suitable way to assess the inherent limitations of a gearbox technologies to achieve high efficiencies. This paper complements the existing research dealing with the complex interaction between gearbox technologies and the actuators, with a new gearbox-centered perspective particularly focused on HRI applications.
Highlights
Industrial robots represent the backbone of several large-scale, traditional manufacturing industries including automotive or electronics
The manufacture of the RE series was discontinued in the 90’s, Wolfrom Planetary Gear Trains (PGTs)’s are recently enjoying growing interest of the robotics research community, as we have summarized in a previous paper of the authors (López-García et al, 2019a)
The ultralight strain wave drives (HD, E-cyclo) are certainly in a very good position to serve these needs, a fact confirmed by its current dominance in the field of cobots
Summary
Industrial robots represent the backbone of several large-scale, traditional manufacturing industries including automotive or electronics. For large-scale, highly automated industrial environments, the advantage of robotic solutions compared to human operators mainly lies in (i) larger availability and (ii) the ability to move—typically large—payloads with extreme positioning accuracy and at high speed. These aspects are of pivotal importance when designing and selecting suitable technologies for an industrial robot, for the prime movers and transmissions providing movement to these devices. The key to success in these new applications lies in a very high degree of flexibility, required to enable a safe and efficient, direct cooperation with humans in order to achieve shared goals This objective requires robots to first develop the ability to interact safely with humans, in a discipline usually referred to as pHRI—physical Human-Robot Interaction
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