Title: Energy model for motion planning of 2D-belt press line tending robots

Authors: Emile Glorieux; Prithwick Parthasarathy; Bo Svensson; Fredrik Danielsson

Addresses: WMG, University of Warwick, CV4 7ALCoventry, UK ' iSolve Technologies, 600018, Chennai, India ' Department of Engineering Science, University West, S-461 86 Trollhättan, Sweden ' Department of Engineering Science, University West, S-461 86 Trollhättan, Sweden

Abstract: A current trend in production is to reduce energy consumption where possible not only to lower the cost but also to be a more energy efficient entity. This paper presents an energy model to estimate the electrical energy consumption of 2D-belt robots used for material handling in multi-stage sheet metal press lines. An estimation of the energy consumption is computed by the proposed energy model based on the robot components' specifications, the robot path and trajectory. The proposed model can predict the energy consumption offline by simulation, and thus, before installation, avoiding the need for physical experiments. It is demonstrated that it can be used for predicting potential energy reductions achieved by optimising the motion planning. Additionally, it is also shown how to investigate the energy saving achieved by using mechanical brakes when the robot is idle. This effectively illustrates the usefulness of the proposed energy model. [Submitted 01 March 2018; Accepted 18 March 2019]

Keywords: robotics; motion planning; material handling; energy modelling; optimisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMR.2020.105477

International Journal of Manufacturing Research, 2020 Vol.15 No.1, pp.52 - 72

Received: 01 Mar 2018
Accepted: 18 Mar 2019
Published online: 02 Mar 2020 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article