Investigation of Hybrid Tooth Profiles for Robotic Drives Based on IH Tooth Profiles and Cycloidal Curves
Recently, with policies aimed at strengthening domestic manufacturing and technological innovation, the robotics industry has been growing rapidly, and its applications are expanding across various industrial fields. Accordingly, the importance of high-performance speed reducers with flexibility and...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2025-05-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/10/5389 |
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| Summary: | Recently, with policies aimed at strengthening domestic manufacturing and technological innovation, the robotics industry has been growing rapidly, and its applications are expanding across various industrial fields. Accordingly, the importance of high-performance speed reducers with flexibility and precision is gradually increasing. The tooth profiles used in conventional harmonic reducers have structural limitations, such as meshing discontinuity, restrictions on the radius of curvature of the tooth base, and distortion of the contact trajectory, especially when the number of teeth is small. These problems limit the design freedom of the reducer and make it difficult to secure contact stability and durability under precision driving conditions. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a new tooth profile design equation, the IH (Involute Harmonic) tooth profiles and the HTPs (Hybrid Tooth Profiles), using the cycloid curve to overcome the structural limitations of the conventional harmonic tooth profile, which is difficult to design under small-tooth-number conditions, and to enable tooth design without restrictions on the number of teeth. HTP tooth profile is a new gear tooth profile design method that utilizes IH tooth profile and cycloid curve to optimize the meshing characteristics of gears. A tooth profile design tool based on the HTP equation was developed using Python 3.13.3. The tool’s effectiveness was validated through simulations assessing tooth meshing and interference. Using the tool, an R21_z3 reducer with a single-stage high reduction ratio was designed to evaluate practical applicability. A prototype was fabricated using 3D printing with PLA material, and experimental testing confirmed the absence of meshing or interference issues, consistent with simulation results. Through this study, we verified the usefulness of the HTP tooth profile design formula and design tool using the IH tooth profile and cycloid curve, and it is expected that the proposed HTP tooth profile can be utilized as a tooth profile applicable to various reducer designs. |
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| ISSN: | 2076-3417 |