A Novel Self-Shifting Transmission to Improve Conventional Drive Trains

In engineering, when trying to change the output of a motor, be it by shifting gears or changing what the output is altogether, an outside force is needed to effect this change. However, this means that another end effector, such as a motor or piston, must be devoted entirely to shifting gears, or each output must have its own motor. The student researcher has designed a device, powered by two motors that, acting as a sprocket, can engage and disengage a chain while still retaining the ability to rotate in both directions By connecting two of these devices to the same pair of motors but having the devices offset from one another, the motors can be manipulated to engage one chain while disengaging the other, allowing them to switch gears and eliminating the need for an outside force. After constructing such a device, the researcher collected stall torque and maximum angular velocity data for the transmission and simple gear systems with the same gear ratios, all powered by 30rpm 6V DC motors, and found that the loss in torque and angular velocity on each gear to be 14% or less.