This year’s Hermes Award goes to Wittenstein AG. The winning product is a completely new type of gearhead featuring Industry 4.0 connectivity. Wittenstein AG will receive the HERMES AWARD for its product “Galaxie” – a gearhead with independently movable gear teeth arranged in such a way that all surfaces of each tooth are able to engage with the teeth of the fixed outer ring gear.
As a result, the Galaxie’s force-transmitting surface contact is more than six times greater than that of conventional gearheads. The teeth are driven by a combination of a polygon on the input shaft and, on the output side, a segmented antifriction bearing and a tooth carrier with segmented outer bearing ring. The meshing pattern is a logarithmic spiral – another first. The Galaxie outperforms all other gearbox designs in terms of torque density, torsional stiffness, zero backlash and compact form. It is also more energy-efficient and is suitable for a range of applications, including machine tools, robots, wind turbines and textile machinery.