Abstract
Power-to-weight ratio of actuators is extremely important for robots, particularly mobile robots. The combination of electric motor and speed reducer, which is the most common driving mechanism for robots, can utilize the motor in the area where its power output is high when the reduction ratio is appropriately designed relative to the load. However, in the case of applications in which the load significantly changes, the motor has to be operated in the area where its power output significantly drops. Therefore I have focused on the Radial Crank-type Continuously Variable Transmission (RC-CVT), which overcomes the limit of crank-type CVT. This paper proposes the load sensitive RC-CVT, which can sense the load and adjust the reduction ratio automatically. The Inverse and direct kinematics, statics, the design of load sensing device, and the test of the prototype are described in this paper. The application to a quadruped robot is also introduced.
