Continued development of a precision gear unit -- Part I: fundamentals and survey

摘要

More than 25 years ago the first gear units of the Harmonic Drive type were sent to the moon on the occasion of the Apollo mission. Since then these gearboxes have found many further applications like robots, machine tools and automatic component inserting machines. This paper presents new developments of this low-play gearbox type which now were optimized regarding the features small transmission ratios and higher torques (part II) as well as lightweight design and compactness (part III). First of all this part I gives a survey on the function of the gear unit.