Analyzing energy consumption of industrial robots

Energy conservation is a key aspect towards sustain-ability and is pursued by both, research and industry. To this end, we present measurements of the power consumption of two industrial robots. Based on a selected motion pattern the velocity and acceleration of the robot is varied and we show that the power is measurable with good repeatability. The energy of these motions is calculated from the power time series. Contrary to expectations it turns out that slow motions are not necessarily the most energy efficient. Finally, we show that the best strategy for energy conservation depends heavily on the robot model.