Development of a spherical stepping motor rotating around six axes

Abstract

Spherical motors have an advantageous feature that they can rotate around multiple axes. From the advantage, spherical motors are expected to be applied to driving mechanisms of holonomic mobile robots, joints of robots, and so on. This study develops a spherical motor called 14–12 spherical stepping motor that can rotate around 6 axes. This paper describes the structure of the motor, rotation principle by five-phase ACs (Alternative Currents), a five-phase AC power supply, and rotation experiments to confirm the applicability of the motor.