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I am trying to get information on the maxon drive motors on the Curiosity Rover.

Does anyone know

  1. know what model of DC brushless motors are used
  2. what kind of gear speed reducer is used. Is it a spur?

Also any other helpful sources on the drive motor system/ power transmission systems would be so helpful.

uhoh
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Ben Birdwell
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  • I'm pretty sure the gear reducers for driving the wheels use harmonic drives (or strain wave gearing is the non-trademarked name) though I guess there could be a further reduction stage. Harmonic drives offer a large reduction in one stage - a similar method was used in the wheels of the old lunar rovers. As for the motors I've checked in the past for specs but haven't been able to find any. There's very little info on the older MER rovers here but the motor specs given there are for other systems, not the wheels... – Andy Nov 21 '16 at 10:19
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    An article in Power Transmission Engineering gives a bit more info, but very little. Note a quote "There are 31 brushless motors on Curiosity that have encoder parts from Maxon” - and another quote elsewhere - may imply Maxon provided the encoders but not the motors. – Andy Nov 21 '16 at 18:04

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