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US 7,206,666 B2Granted
Actuator unit and multi-axis robot
AssigneeSony Corporation
InventorKatsuhisa Ito
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An actuator unit is applied to joints, each movable along two or more axes, such as a hip joint, a knee joint, or an ankle joint of a legged mobile robot. All the moving portions of a power-supply and control-signal harness are accommodated inside the actuator unit, and an electric contact of the actuator unit is on the free end of an output shaft so that a multi-axis robot is easily achieved. The actuator unit has two orthogonal shafts, and is useful to robots having various kinds of joint structures.
Claims20
An actuator unit comprising:
- two motors;
- output shafts drivingly connected to rotors of the motors;
- a housing covering the motors;
- terminal free ends of the output shafts being exposed to the exterior of the housing;
- and
- electric contacts on the terminal free ends of the output shafts for electric power and a control signal.
3 more elements
An actuator unit comprising:
- two motors;
- output shafts drivingly connected to rotors of the motors;
- a housing covering the motors;
- free ends of the output shafts being exposed to the exterior of the housing;
- and
- electric contacts on the free ends of the output shafts for electric power and a control signal,
- wherein the output shafts of the two motors are orthogonally disposed,
- wherein electric power and a control signal are input to an electric contact on the free end of the output shaft of one of the motors, and
- wherein the electric contact on the free end of the output shaft of the other motor, which is not used for the input, outputs the electric power and the control signal to actuate another actuator.
6 more elements
An actuator unit comprising:
- a first container accommodating a first motor configured to drive a first output shaft in rotation about a first axis, the first container having a first bearing portion to support the first output shaft;
- and
- a second container accommodating a second motor configured to drive a second output shaft in rotation about a second axis, the second container having a second bearing portion to support the second output shaft
- wherein the first output shaft and the second output shaft are substantially orthogonally disposed, and
- wherein the first axis and the second axis are coplanar.
2 more elements
A multi-axis robot comprising:
- at least two actuator units functioning as joints having high degrees of freedom, each actuator unit comprising two motors output shafts of which are orthogonally disposed and have electric contacts on terminal free ends of the output shafts.
A multi-axis robot comprising:
- at least two actuator units functioning as joints having high degrees of freedom, each actuator unit comprising two motors output shafts of which are orthogonally disposed and have electric contacts on the free ends of the output shafts, wherein at least three actuator units are combined so that the output X-shaft and the output Y-shaft of the first actuator unit correspond to a roll axis and a pitch axis of the hip joint, respectively, and the output X-shaft and the output Y-shaft of the second actuator unit correspond to a pitch axis and a roll axis of the knee joint, respectively, and the output X-shaft and the output Y-shaft of the third actuator unit correspond to a pitch axis and a roll axis of the ankle joint, respectively.
A multi-axis robot comprising:
- at least two actuator units functioning as joints having high degrees of freedom, each actuator unit comprising two motors output shafts of which are orthogonally disposed and have electric contacts on the free ends of the output shafts,
- wherein, in each of the actuator units, electric power and a control signal are input into an electric contact on the free end of the output shaft connected to one of the motors and are output from an electric contact on the free end of the output shaft connected to the other motor, which is not used for the input, to actuate another actuator.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.