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Strain Wave Gear Production in the Age of Humanoid Robots

Humanoid robots need precise strain wave gears in their joints, and building and inspecting those gears at scale will call for equally advanced production technology

“The time has come for robots,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang proclaimed at his company’s annual GPU Technology Conference in March 2026. “Everyone, pay attention. This could very well be the largest industry of all.”

Perceive, Understand & Perform

AICA and Schaeffler demonstrate the role Physical AI can play in the manufacturing environment

The Near Future of Mechanical Drive for Humanoid Robots

AI has moved humanoid robots forward, but safety, reliability and cost in the actuator drivetrain still stand in the way of commercial deployment

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Technical Articles

Design and Load Capacity of Crown Gears in Comparison to Bevel Gears

Through loaded tooth contact analysis of two applications, this paper demonstrates that crown gears can match bevel gear load capacity while offering meaningful advantages in weight reduction, axial-force-free pinion mounting, and assembly simplicity.

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Design Principles of Bevel Gears: Rationale for Zero Sum Profile Shifts and Generating Gear Choices

This article demonstrates why bevel gears are designed with a zero sum of profile shifts—showing that independent shifts merely replicate what a modified pressure angle already achieves—and explains the practical benefits of using conical generating gears for tooth profile crowning.

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Twenty Years of Pulsator Tests on Helicopter Gears

Leonardo Helicopters’ 20-year, 650+ test campaign characterizing tooth-root bending fatigue strength across gear materials, heat treatments, and finishing processes (notably shot peening and superfinishing) to support aerospace gear design.

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Couplings and Clutches

A technical overview of the three principal face couplings (Hirth, Coniflex, and Curvic), comparing their tooth geometries, self-centering behavior, and Gleason’s cutting and grinding processes for manufacturing them.

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Design

Due to near-net shape production, additive-manufactured (AM) gears have a high potential to decrease costs and increase resource efficiency. The decreasing product life cycles as well as the increasing individualization of components demand high flexibility in manufacturing processes

Grinding

Fully electric vehicle drives usually require two-stage, non-switchable transmissions. One would think that this greatly simplifies the production. Finally, the described transmission structure has just four gears, distributed on the drive shaft, the second stage with fixed wheel and intermediate shaft as well as the axle drive wheel. But the conditions are not that simple: First of all, the engine speeds of the electric drive with up to 16,000 rpm are much higher than those of the combustion engine. For this purpose, electric motors deliver an almost constant torque over a wide speed range. Unlike the combustion engine, it is already attached to the transmission from zero speed. In addition, there is an additional boundary condition that makes production much more demanding than with the conventional powertrain.

Inspection

Gear inspection has long been a highly specialized, costly investment and an overall challenging part of the gear manufacturing process. Through advances in technology and automation, this typically tedious, time-consuming process is becoming significantly
more efficient as multisensor coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) gain more traction as one of the preferred methods of gear inspection.

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Videos

From Job Shop to Production with the Hera 750

At Gear Headquarters, quality is the foundation of everything they do. Based in Kansas City, the shop manufactures spur, helical, double-helical, herringbone, bevel, internal, spline, and worm gears, sprockets, and timing belt pulleys. 

Industry News

Forest City Gear promoted Lukas Tresemer to engineering manager.

Product News

 EcoCortec, the European subsidiary of Cortec Corporation, developed two certified compostable packaging films for heavy-duty industrial use: EcoShrink and EcoWrap. Manufactured at its facility in Croatia, these films serve as direct replacements for conventional polyethylene. They allow operations teams to maintain pallet load stability and meet environmental targets using their existing wrapping equipment and packaging workflows.

Calendar

AIoT World Expo

Feb 9, 2027 - Feb 11, 2027

The AIoT World Expo (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) explores the potential of intelligent machines, prescriptive analytics, sensor driven analytics and block chain solutions. Attendees learn about IoT technologies that are driving the transformation in manufacturing, supply chain and operations.

Additive Manufacturing Strategies 2027

Feb 23, 2027 - Feb 25, 2027

CES 2027

Jan 6, 2027 - Jan 9, 2027

PowerGen 2027

Jan 18, 2027 - Jan 21, 2027

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