Energy Efficiency Improvement of a Robotic Finger With Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene Gear

Improving energy efficiency of robots is an important issue for diffusion of robots in society. For reducing the energy consumption of robots, we focused on the gear weight and friction during drive, and investigated Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMW-PE) for the robot joints as a lightweight, low friction, and high impact strength material. A simple UHMW-PE gear has already been proposed, and the friction and wear reduction effects of the gear alone have been verified. However, the energy efficiency improvement has not been investigated. We designed UHMW-PE gears for comparing to the conventional metal (CAC502) gear. Each gear was incorporated into a humanoid robot finger joint, and the energy consumption when the finger bended was compared. The UHMW-PE gear with excellent self-lubrication reduced energy consumption in the robot finger by around 3%.