My lab was in need of a method to characterize actuators, so I designed and built a custom dynamometer with a large motor and torque sensor that could be placed in series with any device we want to test. We have two gearboxes, one 100:1 ratio that can provide torques of up to 200Nm, and one 5:1 ratio that is used for bandwidth testing and disturbance rejection testing.
The large motor is on a CAN network to communicate with the tested device, and the torque sensor is on a serial channel. Flexible couplings are used to isolate the sensor signal. The component list is as follows:
1. Anaheim Automation BLY342D-160V-3000 BLDC motor
2. Anaheim Automation GBPH-0902-NP-(5 and 100)-AA341-500 gearbox
3. ATO-TQS-DYN-200, 300Nm capacity
4. Thorlabs optical breadboard hardware for mounting
This setup was used in the DEA actuator testing and we are currently using it for other projects.
