RV Gearbox Defines Bionic Degrees of Freedom

When it comes to robots, no doubt the recently popular Tesla humanoid robot, Optimus Prime, has been making headlines. Reports suggest that this robot is capable of walking steadily, rotating its body, waving to the audience below, and even performing simple dance moves at a slow pace. As one of the core components of the robot, the RV gearbox plays a crucial role in the robot's joints, allowing it to achieve a level of flexibility close to that of humans.

The RV gearbox serves as an intermediate mechanism connecting the power source and the actuator, with the function of matching speeds and transmitting torque. In the classification of gearboxes, the RV gearbox stands out for its good rigidity, impact resistance, high gear ratio, small backlash, high precision, long service life, and more reliable stability when applied to robots.

Today, I will provide you with a detailed introduction to the RV gearbox, giving you a deeper understanding of one of the most precise components in industrial robots.

In articulated robots, the RV gearbox is generally placed in heavy-load positions such as the base, upper arm, and shoulder. If we compare industrial robots to humans, the gearbox is like the joints of a person. Without it, the various parts cannot operate with greater force.

The robot's RV gearbox consists of a planetary gear reducer as the front stage and a cycloidal pinwheel reducer as the rear stage. The RV gearbox is a compact transmission mechanism with a large gear ratio and, under certain conditions, has a self-locking function. It is one of the commonly used gearboxes and has been developed based on the traditional cycloidal gear mechanism. It not only overcomes the disadvantages of general cycloidal gear transmission but also has a range of advantages such as small size, light weight, wide gear ratio range, long service life, high precision, high strength, high rigidity, good stability, high efficiency, and smooth transmission. Therefore, it is widely used in industrial robots. Compared to the commonly used harmonic drive gearboxes in robots, the RV gearbox has higher fatigue strength, rigidity, and lifespan, and its backlash accuracy remains stable over time. Unlike harmonic drive gearboxes, which experience a decrease in motion precision with prolonged use, high-precision robot transmissions often adopt RV gearboxes.

In fact, due to the excellent performance of RV gearboxes, they are widely used not only in robots but also in advanced fields such as CNC machine tools, semiconductor LCD manufacturing equipment, new energy, aerospace, and other areas that require precise motion control. The gearbox manufacturer, Weitengstan from Dongguan, believes that with the development of high-end manufacturing, the demand for RV gearboxes will continue to rise.