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Backdrivability
Posted on Dec 5, 2017 by enrikds — Leave a comment

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There is a trend in robotics towards the use of backdrivable actuators due to multiple reasons.
One of them, is the need of sharing the environment with humans. Such a robot needs Why non-backdrivability is a
flexibility to adapt the differences between real environmental condition and assumed problem for Force Control
environmental condition. The robot´s joints may need to be articulated by a human and that Backdrivability on ball screws
would require high backdrivable actuators with low friction. The most important elements of
There are many other applications where a backdrivable actuator is needed, for example, in a robot
teleoperation, when Position-Position control is implemented. In teleoperation, a master device The most common places to
is controlled by a human operator and a slave device placed in a safe area mimics the shop for robotics components
movements of the master device. Position-Position uses the difference in position between Best blogs and podcasts to stay
master and slave to calculate the feedback forces to the operator. The more the positional tuned on the Robotics Industry
error, the greater the forces. This positional error would be much more reduced with non-
backdrivable actuators, and then, more difficult to provide feedback to the operator. At the end
of the day, what you want in your slave device is to behave like a human, to react to the
external forces as a human would do. If having a very stiff slave, the positional error would be
minimum in normal tasks and the operator would not feel anything. Archives
In any circumstance where the estimation of the external forces is needed, a backdrivable Jan 2023
actuator is preferred. This could also be the case of walking robots, where it is important to feel Jan 2021
the impact between the leg and the ground and react accordingly with a determined Sep 2019
compliance. Aug 2019
Mar 2018
Backdrivability is essential for safe robotic-arm operation around people; operating in Dec 2017
unstructured environments; for stable control of contact forces; and for exploiting Jacobian- Nov 2017
Transpose safely to enable Cartesian control of forces, haptic objects, and direct Cartesian Dec 2016
control of trajectories. Nov 2016
Oct 2016
Jul 2016
Backdrivability is the ability for interactive transmission of force between input axis and output
May 2016
axis. To get high backdrivability, we have to reduce friction of power transmission considerably.
Apr 2016
Backdrivability provide actuators with high force sensitivity and high impact resistance which
adapts to quick external force mechanically.

In rehabilitation robotics, particularly in upper limbrobotics, the drives must be able to deliver
high torques at low velocity. Therefore, many rehabilitation robots are driven by motor-gearbox
combinations. In contrast to direct-drive motors, the backdrivability of geared drives is poor due Categories
to friction in the gearbox. The back-driving torque sb can be defined as the amount of torque
3D printing
the human must apply to the robotic joint in order to perform a user-driven movement. Perfect
Actuators
backdrivability is achieved if sb = 0.
Control for teleoperation
Force Estimation
In [1] it is suggested that a reduction ratio over 60 in harmonic drives creates non-backdrivable
General
actuators.
Inspection robots
Mathematics
The backdrivability of a gearbox is highly correlated with the friction and the efficiency.
Mechanical Design
Hence, let us have a look to the efficiency of different types of gears to get a initial impression
News
of the backdrivaility of them.
Radiation
In [2] a comparison between Harmonic drives and Cycloid drives is shown. In their research, Robot Dynamics
Cycloid drives fitted into the same package diameter as harmonic drives with equal torque- Robotic devices
generating capabilities. In their research, they demonstrated many advantages over harmonic Robotics
drives, including substantially greater efficiency (especially at low torques) and lower reflected Sensors
inertia, and often provided a thinner profile. These benefits were offset, however, by substantial Uncategorized
disadvantages, including significant backlash and gear ratio ripple.

They conclude that, neither Cycloid nor harmonic drives are universally superior for all
applications and conditions. However, Cycloid drives should be considered for applications in
anthropomorphic robots and prostheses, especially those in which size, inertia, and efficiency Blogroll
take precedence over backlash and torque ripple.
Cognitive Dissonance –

Gear Efficiency Comparison Table Robotics Blog

No Type Normal Ratio Range Efficiency Range

1 Spur 1:1 to 6:1 94-98% Gallery

2 Straight Bevel 3:2 to 5:1 93-97%

3 Spiral Bevel 3:2 to 4:1 95-99%

4 Worm 5:1 to 75:1 50-90%

5 Hypoid 10:1 to 200:1 80-95%

6 Helical 3:2 to 10:1 94-98%

7 Cycloid 10:1 to 100:1 75% to 85%

Double helical gear drives are considered to be more efficient than single helical gears.

Spur Gears
Straight Bevel Gears

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Spiral Bevel Gears

 Hypoid Gears.
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Double Helical Gears.

 Helical Gears

Worm Gears.

Backdrivability of ball screws

Check out my article on backdrivability of ball screws to discover the main parameters that
make them backdrivable.

[1] Instrumented Harmonic Drives for Robotic Compliant Maneouvres. H. Kazerooni.

[2] Cycloid vs. Harmonic Drives for use in High Ratio, Single Stage
Robotic Transmissions. Jonathon W. Sensinger, Member, IEEE and James H. Lipsey.2012
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
RiverCentre, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

‹ Notes on encoder resolution for velocity control of motors A good robotic blog ›

Tagged with: Backdrivability, Backdrivable, control, Force Control, Gearbox, Gears, Robotics, teleoperation
Posted in Robotics

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