Many attempts have been made in the last decades made to build a CVT based on shape couplings (gears/pinons/shafts/chains), but with little success – especially when costs are taken into account.
In 2015, Edyson Pavilcu started to devise a CVT based on shape coupling. He made several attempts with different kinematics, and in 2016 he had the breakthrough idea for a CVT based on a modified planetary system.
The breakthrough consisted in splitting the rotation in portions and using one satellite for each portion, turning it off in the other portions via a freewheel. The torque is efficiently transferred through gears, freewheels and a four-bar mechanism, which re-construct the gear rotation with variable ratio.
The principle of “split rotation” is so new that it led to 2 separate patents, both very sound and large, granted at international level. These patents are the foundation of the RatioZero project.
Downlad the patents