INVESTIGATION TO GEAR‐BOX DISTURBANCES IN MECHATRONIC DRIVES P. Häuptle 1 , P. Hubinský 2 and G. Gruhler 3 1 Peter Häuptle, haeuptle@hs‐heilbronn.de, STU Bratislava, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Ilkovičova 3, 812‐19 Bratislava 1, Slovakia and in cooperation with Heilbronn University, Faculty of Mechanics & Electronics, Max‐Planck‐Str. 39, 74081 Heilbronn, Germany 2 Peter Hubinský, peter.hubinsky@stuba.sk, STU Bratislava, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Ilkovičova 3, 812‐19 Bratislava 1, Slovakia 3 Gerhard Gruhler, gruhler@hs‐heilbronn.de, Heilbronn University, Faculty of Mechanics & Electronics, Max‐Planck‐Str. 39, 74081 Heilbronn, Germany Keywords: kinematic‐error, gear‐box, harmonic‐drive ® , ripples, oscillations, harmonics Abstract. In a mechatronic drive where control, electronics and a motor connected to a gear‐box is put together to one module, disturbances on the output side can occur. Such modules are often used in modular robotics where these disturbances or ripples respectively can lead to oscillations at the end‐effector. One big impact is the kinematic‐error raised in the gear‐box. We want to show our measurement results. Further we want to introduce some theory of the origin of such disturbances. Introduction Our experimental setup is based on mechatronic drive (MD) i.e. PW70 from the company SCHUNK. We put an accelerometer on the output side. Two different disturbances, the transient‐ as well as the semi‐steady‐state‐error could be found. During constant moving velocities of the PW70 the following waterfall‐plot of the measured semi‐steady‐state‐error (accelerometer) could be done [4, 5]: (motor harmonics: 1, 2, 3, 3.3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) Figure 1 Waterfall plot of semi-steady-state osc. where horizontally the frequency content in Hz of the measured acc. signal is shown. In depth, the motor velocity (M‐velocity) in Hz is shown. We also may see a shape of a “Japanese blower” which are multiples of the motor turning frequency namely motor harmonics. Figure 2 centralize the main occurring frequency contents measured with the used experimental setup. Figure 3 shows the construction scheme of a harmonic drive ® gear‐box. Figure 2 Oscillation scheme Figure 3 HD scheme where i indicates the gear‐ratio. Transient oscillation. This oscillation is namely the system‐oscillation‐frequency ω d of i.e. a torsional damped spring mass system like the used experimental setup. This frequency occurs mainly during acceleration or deceleration of the MD (transients). For a P‐T 2 system, the frequency can be stated out like shown in Table I.