Design of mechanical presses driven by multi-servomotor

This paper proposes a so-called multi-servomotor parallel driven scheme to construct high capacity mechanical presses. The design method is based on the combination of dual screw actuation unit, parallel mechanism with kinematic redundancy (PMKR) and toggle mechanism with symmetric arrangement. Here, the dual screw actuation unit, which consists of two ball screws driven by two servomotors respectively, acts as a linear actuator. By connection with PMKR, several actuators are incorporated to generate large driving force to push the ram of press via toggle mechanism. To get more power from more linear actuation units, three kinds of 2-, 3-, 6-degree of freedom (DoF) PMKRs with linear actuators are proposed. A 2-DoF PMKR example is studied, and its load capability and accuracy performance are illustrated. Finally, three schematics of 4-, 6- and 12- servomotor mechanical presses are presented. These schemes demonstrate the feasibility of the design method to develop high capacity mechanical presses driven by multi-servomotor.