Online Energy-Optimal Timing of Stochastic Robot Stations

This paper investigates the problem of reducing the energy use of the movements of robots in industrial robot stations that have variations in execution times. An online method is presented that repeatedly solves an optimization problem during the execution of the station, that tries to minimize the energy use by finding the optimal execution times of the robot movements while at the same ensuring that the deadline of the station is met with a high enough probability. The method involves reformulating the original optimization problem, which is stochastic and nonlinear, into a convex version that can be solved efficiently. The method is tested on a simulated robot station and the result shows that the method is fast enough to be useable online and reduces the energy use of the station.