Uninterrupted Transmission System for Realizing High Flexibility in Design of Angular Velocity Ratio

Geared transmissions are used in a variety of mechanical devices to realize a wide range of speeds or torques. However, the transmission of power and motion in a geared transmission is interrupted when the working gear pairs are changed to vary the velocity ratio. In order to solve this problem, an uninterrupted transmission system was proposed in the previous report that can change the velocity ratio while transmitting power and rotation from the input shaft to the output shaft. However, in the uninterrupted transmission system, there are some cases in which it is difficult to design a suitable noncircular gear based on the combination of angular velocity ratios. In addition, since there is a design constraint that must be satisfied between the angular velocity ratio and the number of teeth on the clutch, the gears and clutches cannot be designed independently. To solve this problem, a new type of uninterrupted transmission system that enables the design of a suitable noncircular gear for various combinations of angular velocity ratios is proposed in this report. Furthermore, in order to avoid the constraint between the angular velocity ratio and the number of teeth on the clutch, a new transition method is proposed. An experimental device using the novel uninterrupted transmission system is constructed, and the effectiveness of the proposed system is verified by experiment.