At MD&M West 2025, Henry Kim, a regional sales engineer at Harmonic Drive, demonstrated advancements in actuator design.
Kim said that Harmonic Drive supplies the component gears that go into robotic arm joints. He added that the company is shifting from supplying components to providing integrated solutions, including actuators with integrated motors and controllers.
Harmonic Drive developed actuators that have integrated a servo drive and controller built in, Kim explained, holding up a component featuring the harmonic drive gear, brushless motor, a dual encoder feedback and a servo drive.
This component was also showcased in a robotic arm display. “In this particular format and design, we designed it using CANopen wires,” he said. “CANopen only requires four wires for communications and power. In this little robotic arm demo, a typical servo drive solution for a robot arm would require 12 to 14 wires per axis of motor. With CANopen, we only require four. We really simplify the cable work.”
The CANopen standard, which was designed originally for motion-oriented machine control, is useful as it enables off-the-shelf interoperability between devices or nodes.
Another Communication Protocol
Harmonic Drive will also harness EtherCAT, a different communication protocol method, for its actuators. “EtherCAT is much more accepted in wider industries for PLC interface as well as general automation,” Kim noted.
In a nutshell: “This is what’s our latest and greatest in terms of promoting integrated servo actuators with harmonic drives and feedback systems, absolute dual encoder, using EtherCAT as our communication base,” he concluded. “And that is all for you today!”
Editor’s note: For more show coverage, be sure to check out our MD&M West 2025 content hub.
