Energy-efficient design of multipoint trajectories for Cartesian robots

This paper describes a method for planning energy-efficient trajectories for industrial robots driven by brushless or DC motors with regenerative braking. The optimization problem is defined upon spline interpolation methods, using piecewise polynomial functions to produce a trajectory passing through a sequence of via-points, and on the electromechanical model of the robot. The formulation introduced in this work is aimed at estimating and optimizing the energy consumption using closed-form expressions and therefore without the need for any numerical integration of the robot dynamics. The method accounts for kinematic constraints on speed, acceleration, and jerk, as well as constraints due to the limitations of the power supply and of the regenerated energy storage system.