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Slewing ring application in the field of robotics

 

With the development of national high-tech level, robots will be used in industry, manufacturing and other industries to replace traditional manpower and greatly improve their work efficiency, especially in some dust-free workshops, radiation laboratories, high-precision workplaces, etc., robots will be used. As one of the important components of robot equipment, slewing rings play a crucial role, so they are widely called "machine joints". Today we will talk about the application of slewing bearings in the field of robotics.

 

1. Understand the slewing bearing

 

Slewing bearing, also known as turntable bearing, is a large bearing with a special structure that can bear a large axial load, radial load and overturning torque at the same time, and integrates various functions such as bearing, rotation, transmission, and fixation. In general, the slewing ring itself has mounting holes, lubricating oil and sealing devices, which can meet the different needs of various robots working under different working conditions.

 

2. Which type of robot uses slewing rings

 

The slewing ring itself has the characteristics of compact structure, convenient guidance and rotation, easy installation and easy maintenance, and is widely used in the components of industrial robots such as mobile robots, spot welding robots, welding robots, palletizing robots, laser processing robots, assembly robots, and handling robots.

 

3. Technical requirements for the application of slewing bearings in robots

 

The development of robots tends to be lightweight, and slewing bearings must be installed in a limited space, which must be small in size and light in weight, that is, lightweight. However, at the same time, the high load, high rotational accuracy, high running stability, high positioning speed, high repeatability accuracy, long life, and high reliability of the robot require that the supporting robot bearings must have high bearing capacity, high precision, high stiffness, low friction torque, long life, and high reliability.

 

4. The benefits of slewing bearings for robots

 

The slewing ring used by the robot can bear the comprehensive load in the axial, radial, overturning and other directions. Good rigidity, high slewing accuracy, easy installation, space-saving, reduced weight, significantly reduced friction, and good rotational accuracy. This makes it possible to reduce the weight and miniaturization of the main unit. Slewing bearings are mounted on the robot's joints, a structure that allows for incredibly tight rotational motion.

 

5. Commonly used slewing bearing structure methods for industrial robots

 

At present, industrial robots are widely used in manufacturing workshops, from the relationship between slewing rings and transmission reducers, the common slewing ring device structures of modern industrial robots are roughly as follows: split slewing ring structure, integrated slewing ring structure, and hybrid slewing ring structure.

 

1. Split slewing bearing structure

 

In the structure, the cross roller slewing ring is mainly used to withstand the overturning torque, axial force, radial force of the industrial robot, including dynamic and static working conditions, the transmission reducer only bears the rotational torque of the rotary shaft, so under this working condition, the accuracy of the cross roller slewing ring bearing is required to be higher, and to ensure the rotation accuracy of the robot.

 

2. Integrated slewing bearing structure

 

It adopts a main bearing reducer with sufficient load-bearing capacity in the structure, and the main bearing of the reducer bears all the overturning torque and axial force of the industrial robot, so that there is no need to cross the roller slewing ring bearing, and provide higher precision through the main bearing of the reducer, but the cost of this reducer is more expensive.

 

3. Hybrid slewing bearing structure

 

Its structural characteristics are that it uses a hollow main bearing reducer with a certain load-bearing capacity and a cross roller bearing with a certain accuracy to jointly complete the functions of support and rotation. The rotary table of the industrial robot is fixed with the output shaft panel of the slewing drive reducer and the inner ring of the cross roller bearing, and the stiffness of the cross roller slewing bearing is much greater than the bending stiffness of the reducer output panel, so under dynamic working conditions, the bending torque and axial torque are mainly carried by the crossed roller slewing bearing bearing. In this way, the bearing accuracy in static time is guaranteed by the main bearing of the reducer, so the accuracy of the crossed roller bearing does not need to be as high as that of a split structure. Due to its affordability, this hybrid structure may be cost-effective. It is widely used in high-speed, high-precision, and heavy-load loading and unloading handling robots, assembly robots, palletizing robots, etc.

 

6. Application of slewing bearing in palletizing robot

 

Palletizing robots, which are the product of the organic combination of machinery and computer programs, provide higher productivity for modern production and have a wide range of applications in the palletizing industry. Palletizing robots greatly save labor and space. The palletizing robot uses slewing bearings, which can make the robot operate flexibly, quickly, with high stability and high operation rate. In recent years, lightweight, high-precision small slewing bearings have been widely used in similar products, such as robots, spot welding robots, canning machines, automated production lines and other places, such products require flexible operation, point, light and fast, etc., so lightweight and precision slewing bearings are generally used.