MATEX Planetary Gear Powers a Small Mobility

Matex Planetary Gears are being used for several types of small mobilities because of their compactness and high efficiency. Due to their compactness and flexibility to use, MHI employs Matex planetary gears for their EX ROVR, THE AUTONOMOUS, EXPLOSION-PROOF, PLANT INSPECTION ROBOT.

Planetary Gear and Small Mobility Applications

Planetary Gear is a good gear reducer for small mobility applications to make the product compact yet powerful because of its co-axial setting, high efficiency, and high torque. Moreover, Planetary Gear can offer design freedom to a mechanical designer via 3 different drive methods called “Planetary Type”, ”Star Type”, and “Solar Type” with different combinations of input and output. By choosing an appropriate drive method, a mechanical designer can make his/her own unique drive unit with Planetary Gear.

Matex Planetary Gear

Different from usual gearbox products of other competitors, Matex Planetary Gears are offered as Unit Type, which consists of only essential parts of Planetary Gear without gear case, bearing, and shaft.

Though users will be required to design and make their own gear case, bearing, and input and output shafts to use Matex Planetary Gear, users can optimize their own design freely apart from any restrictions of the gear case and shaft of the usual gearbox product. Furthermore, any type of drive method can be realized with Matex Planetary Gear thanks to its Unit style. The sun gear, the internal gear, and the carrier can be used as input or output upon the user’s design concept. On the other hand, the Usual Planetary Gearbox is limited to one type of drive method, usually “Planetary Type”, only. So, users will be limited to one fixed drive method with the gearbox product.

Small Mobility Application

As explained above, Matex Planetary Gear is good for Small Mobility applications, Several customers are using or evaluating Matex Planetary Gear for their small mobility applications, AGV for factory use, power assist bicycle/wheelchair, etc. Different types of mechanisms are employed thanks to Matex Planetary Gear’s high design flexibility. Example 1 shows one typical structure of a wheel-in motor with Planetary Gear. The planetary gear is driven from sun gear, and output torque and rotation are transferred to a wheel via carrier (Planetary Type Drive). Example 2 is another example of Planetary Type Drive. Carrier A drives a belt pulley, and the torque is transferred to a wheel via a belt. Example 3 is an example of Star Type Drive. The sun gear is driven by the motor, and the output torque is pulled out directly to the wheel via the internal gear. Star Type Drive has a lesser speed ratio than the most common usage of Planetary Type, and its direction is opposite, though the internal gear can drive a wheel directly. To make a wheel-in drive compact, The Star Type Drive would be a good choice.

MHI EX ROVR

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. has decided to employ the Matex Planetary Gears for their EX ROVR, THE AUTONOMOUS, EXPLOSION-PROOF, PLANT INSPECTION ROBOT. Compactness, high torque, and high efficiency of Matex Planetary Gear are key for them to choose. The EX ROVR has several mechanisms like main crawlers, sub-crawlers to go over step, a robotic arm, etc, in a relatively small foot print. 2 stages of LGU26 gear set are used for one sub crawler. 2pcs x 4(sub crawlers) =8 gears are used for its mobility. Furthermore, other LGU26 gears are used to move its arm.