Hello,

I am an undergrad student designing a transmission for a personal robot and I would like to have some advice concerning the mechanical efficiency.

I am facing a dilemma: or I make an efficient weaker manipulator, or I make an less efficient stronger manipulator. While designing a professional robot, is efficiency a factor to maximize, whatever the application, or does it depend of the application?

More precisely:

The manipulator will use joint that required two similars servo motors, allowing it to rotate on two perpendicular plane. I have the possibility of applying to load on a single plane, where only one motor is forcing against the load. I also have the possibility to inclined these plan (lets supposed at 45 degree), in a way that the load is applied at 45 degree of each plane.. That way, each motor need to apply 70% of the load to maintain their position. In other word, the system is using 140% of the energy of the first systems. However, it also mean that if both motor are applying their maximal force/torque, 70% of it is used twice, meaning that the second systems can support 140% of the maximal load of the first system.

However, if I need to handle more force in a specific direction, I could simply use a stronger motor, maintaining the energy efficiency of the transmission, but it could imply more lost somewhere else.