Does Inertia Matching Imply Energy Efficiency?

The aim of this work is to analyze the problem of designing energy-efficient servo driven systems, by providing a choice of the proper motor size and the correct gear ratio for an arbitrary load. The analysis takes into account a typical test case and a large number of possible design, which are analyzed by parameterizing the design space on the basis of the motor size and reduction ratio, and on the inertia ratio as well. The analysis of the feasibility of each design, and of the resulting energy consumption for each design sample, show that the most common sizing guideline, based on inertia matching, is incapable of capturing the most energy efficient design.