With an eye toward solving this and other materials-related issues, in 2010, JPL hired Hofmann, then a research scientist at Caltech with a background in materials science and engineering. The interaction causes the flexspline to rotate in the opposite direction of the wave generator, moving only two teeth for each turn of the motor.
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As the oblong wave generator at the center spins, it deforms the flexspline around it, shown in red, which engages with the teeth of a fixed outer spline.
It would be great if those gears could just turn on and drive.”Ī strain wave gear converts the fast, low-torque rotation of an engine into slow, precise, forceful motion. So, NASA’s Curiosity rover, for example, spends about three hours warming up lubricants every time it prepares to start rolling, using up about a quarter of the discretionary energy that could otherwise be used for science, said Doug Hofmann, principal scientist of the Materials Development and Manufacturing Technology group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. But steel gears need liquid lubrication, and oils don’t work well in frigid environments like the lunar or Martian surface. Gears on NASA’s rovers, like most gears on Earth, are made of steel, which is both strong and wear resistant. Now, Pasadena, California-based Amorphology hopes to drop the price of cobots with advances originally made for robots that were never intended for human interaction – NASA’s planetary rovers. “High-precision gears are at least half the cost of robotic arms.” Instead, he said, it often comes down to some of the most rudimentary machine components: gears.
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The biggest cost drivers, however, aren’t always the advanced software and sensors.
“But if it costs $40,000, it’s out of reach for non-industrial applications.” “That’s where the robotics industry is going,” Garrett said, noting that a handful of cobots are already making lattes and sandwiches, for example. To help future rovers save time and energy, NASA invested in bulk metallic glass for gears that require no lubrication. NASA’s Curiosity rover spends about three hours heating up lubricants for its gears each time it sets out across Mars.