Patent ID: 7329190

Claim:
An apparatus for transmitting torque from a driving unit to a driven unit, comprising: a first unit serving as the driving unit, which is rotatable around a central axis thereof, said first unit having a first reference plane; a second unit serving as the driven unit, which is rotatable around a central axis thereof, said second unit having a second reference plane facing said first reference plane; and plural sets of torque transmission units for transmitting torque from said first unit to said second unit, each of said plural sets of torque transmission units comprises: a first rail mounted on said first unit, said first rail extending linearly in a predetermined direction on the first reference plane; a second rail mounted on said second unit so as to be spaced apart from said first rail in a direction, which is in parallel with the central axis of said first unit, said second rail extending linearly on the second reference plane in a different direction from said predetermined direction along which said first rail extends; and a connection block for connecting said first rail and said second rail to each other, said connection block being slidable relative to each of said first rail and said second rail, wherein said plural sets of torque transmission units enable a relative displacement between said first unit and said second unit in a direction perpendicular to the central axis of said first unit in a state in which the central axis of said first unit and the central axis of said second unit are kept in parallel with each other, said plural sets of torque transmission units being independent from each other and placed on a predetermined circle around the central axes of the first and second units so as to be spaced from each other.