Design of a passive, bidirectional overrunning clutch for rotary joints of autonomous robots

Joint design and load transmission are crucial factors when building autonomous robots. On the one hand, heavy torques are often needed which result in multi-stage gearboxes, on the other hand the latter exhibit massive friction which gets in the way of energy-efficient actuation systems. Furthermore, the immense impact forces of a tumbling robot can easily break its joints, gears, and motors. This holds especially true for tall humanoid robots. In this paper we present a novel clutch for rotary joints which is able to resolve the aforementioned dilemma.