Physical modelling of energy consumption of industrial articulated robots

The paper deals with a modelling of the energy consumption of industrial articulated robots. The proposed modelling way is based on graphically-oriented computer-aided concept that exploits CAD software Solidworks and simulation environment MATLAB/Simulink with SimMechanics and SimPowerSystems libraries. These software tools are used for the composition of a dynamical simulation model that represents both mechanical robot structure and robot drives during robot motions. The paper addresses mathematical analysis and interpretation of the considered simulation model. Here, equations of the motion for the mechanical robot structure and appropriate dynamical equations of the robot drives are introduced. Using these equations, the energy consumption equation is defined. The proposed way is demonstrated by simulation experiments for several different velocities of the robot motion along a selected trajectory. For the experiments, industrial articulated robot KUKA KR 5 arc driven by PMSM drives is considered.