Power Consumption Analysis for Smarter Robotics Via Industry 4.0 Methods and Technologies

This paper explores the application opportunities of industry 4.0 technologies with a particular focus on enhancing sustainability and resource efficiency within industrial settings. The main objective of this paper is to design and implement a laboratory-based demonstration that explores an industrial robotic arm’s power consumption and energy efficiency from an Industry 4.0 perspective. The demonstration aims to highlight the potential benefits of horizontal and vertical integration of data, enabling improved information flow across industrial environments. A six-degrees-of-freedom industrial robotic arm is programmed to assemble a four-component product. During this process, data is collected to analyse the effects of payload and operational speed on the product assembly cycle time and energy consumption. The findings from this research lead to a discussion about leveraging data, which is typically confined within the robotic arm, to improve energy efficiencies through Industry 4.0 methods and technologies. Consequently, this results in the development of smarter robotics with enhanced energy efficiency.