The structure of the harmonic reducer is such that on the entire rigid wheel and flexible wheel, teeth with the same modulus can be completely cut off. The most common gears mainly include larger fluctuations, and at the same time, they are in a concentric position throughout the transmission process. The larger the gap between them, the less friction there is. Of course, on the long axis of the ellipse, the overall working height is more compatible and will display different states during operation. What are its advantages? Firstly, the structure is very simple, compact, and lightweight.
Since the harmonic reducer's transmission mainly consists of three parts, including the wave generator, flexible wheel, and rigid wheel, it is superior to conventional transmission reducers in the entire transmission process, being more efficient. At the same time, the number of parts is greatly reduced. This reduction in parts results in the corresponding size and weight being reduced by about one third and also in a higher degree of integration. The range of transmission ratios is broader. Current primary categories include single-stage, double-stage, and amplitude wave reducers. In addition, the number of gears is relatively large.
The power source of industrial robots is generally an AC servo motor, which is driven by pulse signals, and its servo motor can achieve speed regulation. Industrial robots usually perform repetitive actions to complete the same process; to ensure that industrial robots can reliably complete the tasks in production and guarantee the quality of the process, the positioning accuracy and repeat positioning accuracy of the industrial robot are very high.
Therefore, to improve and ensure the precision of industrial robots, it is necessary to use harmonic reducers or RV reducers. Another role of harmonic reducers in industrial robots is to transmit greater torque. When the load is large, blindly increasing the servo motor power is not cost-effective, and the output torque can be increased through the reducer within a suitable speed range. Additionally, servo motors can easily heat up and vibrate at low frequencies when running at low speeds, which is not conducive to ensuring the accurate and reliable operation of industrial robots for long periods and during cyclic work.
The existence of the harmonic reducer allows the servo motor to run at an appropriate speed and precisely reduce the speed to the required speed for various parts of the industrial robot, increasing the rigidity of the mechanical body and outputting greater torque. Compared with general reducers, robotic joint reducers require characteristics such as a short transmission chain, compact size, high power, lightweight, and ease of control. The reducers widely used in joint robots mainly include harmonic reducers and RV reducers. Compared with harmonic reducers, RV reducers have higher rigidity and rotational accuracy. Therefore, in articulated robots, RV reducers are usually placed on heavy loads such as the base's arms and shoulders, while harmonic reducers are placed on the forearms, wrists, or hands.
