A Simple but Effective Approach to Generate Energy-Efficient Trajectories of a 2 Degree-of-Freedom Planar Manipulator

EU has the ambitious goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. To achieve this, energy savings in the industry can play a relevant role. Considering industrial robots, this paper presents a novel method based on adding a proper law to the base one, which both keeps the robot cycle time-invariant and is easy to implement. In particular, a 2 degree-of-freedom planar manipulator is taken as an example. The method consists of an optimization routine that takes into account the joint speed limit, reducing the energy needed for each movement.