Harmonic drive speed reducers history|development

In the 1950s, a new type of harmonic drive technology was invented in US, which is referred to as harmonic speed reducer. This technology is widely used in aerospace, energy, marine, shipbuilding, biomimetic machinery, military machinery, machine tools, instruments, electronic equipment, mining and metallurgy, transportation, lifting machinery, petrochemical machinery, textile machinery, agricultural machinery, medical equipment and other fields, Especially in the high dynamic performance of the servo system, harmonic gear drive demonstrates its superiority.

The introduction of harmonic drive draws world's attention, and Japan company HDSI introduced this technology and developed the first harmonic drive speed reducer. Although this technology has been developed for more than 10 years in abroad, here are still a very wide range of applications considering its advantages which are not replaceable by traditional transmission.

Chinese started to research on the harmonic reducer since 1960s, but compared to foreign countries, there is still a big gap. Chinese products mainly in the imitation stage, and the domestic market has been monopolized by foreign products. At present, there are a number of harmonic reducer manufacturers specialized in this field and make innovations based on previous products and experience. We believe that Chinese harmonic reducer's increasing competitiveness will bring a broader market.

A harmonic reducer consists of three basic components: Fixed internal gear wheel, flexible wheel and the wave generator which makes the flexible wheel's radial-deformation.

Harmonic speed reducer's advantage:
1. High reduction ratio
2. Small backlash. Unlike ordinary gears, harmonic drive offers a very small backlash, which is an essential element in the controller arena.
3. High precision. Multi-teeth meshing simultaneously makes the influence on rotation accuracy caused by gear pitch error and cumulative pitch error is more average, so that the position accuracy and rotation accuracy can reach to an extremely high level.
4. Less parts, easy to install.
5. Small size, light weight
6. High torque capacity
7. Small noise. The low circumferential speed of gear meshing attributes to the balance power transfer during rotation, quiet operation, and minimal vibration.

With the rapid development of economy, the increasing demand for harmonic reducer and related components in the Chinese market requires domestic enterprises join this industry. Luoyang BRS Bearing Co.,Ltd started to develop and produce the output bearings for harmonic speed reducer since 2010, and continuous to research and make innovations based on customers' feedback and foreign products' characteristics. There are mainly 2 series of output bearings for harmonic drive reducer, CSF/CSG series(integrated inner ring and separable outer ring) and SHF/SHG series(integrated inner&outer ring). The harmonic speed reducer unit bearings belong to heavy-duty crossed roller bearings, which can take high axial/radial loads and the tilting moment at the same time, meanwhile ensures the high running accuracy.

CSF|CSG harmonic drive gear head bearing

SHF|SHG harmonic reducer bearing

Along with the improvement of Chinese harmonic reducer bearing's production technology and quality stability, output bearings made in China will be more and more competitive, and both domestic and abroad market will be expanded accordingly.

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