A study on the efficiency prediction of a gear bearing drive by means of mathematical modelling

Abstract

In emerging transmission technologies for robotics, several purpose-made gearboxes have been developed. In this paper, it is aimed to first establish the mathematical model and kinematic diagram of the Gear Bearing Drive (GBD) developed by NASA, which is one of the compact gearboxes powered by brushless motors with high gear ratio used in modern robotic technologies, with the help of planetary gear train kinematics with wolfrom-based topology, to examine the established mathematical model analytically and then to move it to the virtual environment with the help of MATLAB® Simulink®. Although essential information such as understanding the behavior of GBD and determining for which systems it is suitable to be used is understood from previous studies, a clear efficiency expression for GBD has not been encountered in this works available. In this study, it is intended to establish an expression for the estimation of efficiency for a GBD by considering the power losses of the components within the system.