SRI Demonstrates Abacus, the First New Rotary Transmission Design in 50 Years

I know, it doesn't seem like there's any possible way that a transmission system could be interesting enough that we'd dedicate an entire article (and video!) to it. But here we are: As soon as SRI explained how their new Abacus transmission worked, we were absolutely sure that it was cool enough to share. In a nutshell, here's why: It's the first new rotary transmission design since Harmonic Drive introduced its revolutionary gear system in the 1960s*, and it might give harmonic gears a literal run for their money. The physics of most electric motors generally dictates that the motors are happiest when they're spinning very fast. Unless you want to use them to simply spin a thing very fast, you'll need to add a rotary transmission that can convert low torque, high speed rotation into higher torque, lower speed rotation. If you've got the budget, the way to do this is with a high-performance harmonic gear like the ones offered by Harmonic Drive.