US Army utilizes a wide range of vehicles across ground and air platforms where mechanical transmissions are used to transmit power from the engine to the drive shaft. Gears are used to create a torque and speed conversion with mechanical contact between the gear teeth surfaces. Lubrication is necessary to create a protective film between rolling and sliding surfaces as well as provide sufficient cooling to prevent failure. As such, mechanical contact transmissions are vulnerable to loss of lubrication events and require regular maintenance for the lubrication system.The US Army desires a solution to reduce mechanical contacts within the helicopter transmission to alleviate the lubrication loss related catastrophic failures. Vishwa Robotics proposes a novel gear box for rotorcraft that results in simplification of the overall structure with substantial reduction in GTOW by circumventing the lubrication package. Removing the lubrication system and reduction of different mechanical frictional tribological mechanisms found in typical helicopter rotor mechanism allows increase in transmission life expectancy, robustness and dramatic increase in reliability. Vishwa Robotics concept can enable future scaling up to the power class of a utility, attack or cargo class helicopter.
