Reducing the Weight of a Robot Actuator
A metal additive manufacturing process reduced the weight of a hydraulic actuator, leading to a better performing component.
This highly integrated electronic actuator for a hydraulic quadruped robot needed to meet design requirements while achieving a 50 percent weight reduction, compared to a traditionally manufactured actuator body.
A powder-bed metal additive manufacturing process called selective laser melting (SLM) allowed it to be made as one piece. The part was grown layer by layer in Ti6Al4V (titanium alloy) on a Renishaw AM250 industrial 3D printer at the Moog Additive Manufacturing Center (now part of Linear AMS).
The new actuator’s one-piece construction reduces manufacturing operations, improves performance through design features such as curved flow tubes that eliminate right-angle drilling, and reduces weight as a result of downsizing. Traditional manufacturing would have entailed combining the cast and fabricated pieces with brazing and welding operations.
This particular actuator is used on each leg of a quadruped robot developed at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, where it was designed initially for military applications. However, a similar actuator concept can also be used in many other applications, for example: heavy equipment, such as tractors and large earth-moving equipment, for weight and size reduction; military and commercial aircraft, to control velocity and engine speed by adjusting levers and flaps; and injection-molding applications for exact precision control.
Related Content
-
Niche Work If You Can Get It: A CNC Machine Shop Crafts Its Own Destiny
The latest innovations in metalworking aren’t always related to CNC automation or robotics. For Rosenberger North America, a 2022 Top Shops Honoree, it is the company’s niche processes that create the biggest successes.
-
Weiler to Debut New Automation Features For Its Lathes
Weiler’s V 110 four-way precision lathe introduces features new to the U.S.
-
Choosing a Five-Axis Machine Tool With Automation in Mind
While much focus is placed on the machinery that moves parts, the features most important for automating five-axis machining are arguably found in the machine tool itself.