Design Concept of Robot Actuator Module with Passive Cooling by Heat Transfer among Close Contact Components.

In this paper, we proposed a concept of passive-cooling for robot actuators which dissipates generated heat among components by thermal conduction. Graphite sheets were adopted as a substance of thermal conduction and their effectiveness was studied through experiments using a motor and the sheets. As a concrete implementation of passive-cooling using graphite sheets, a robot module with this concept was developed. Through the experiments of temperature measurement, we confirmed that the rises of motor temperatures were reduced in the situation with sheets for thermal conduction.