Suitability of a virtual commissioning model for energy optimization of a gantry robot

Abstract: Manufacturing production systems are increasingly forced to join the path of sustainability regarding their typical room for improvement in terms of clean technology and energy usage. However, implementing these eco-friendly measures on facilities is a double-edged sword since the results are not usually guaranteed and could end up being extra energy wastages. Even though nowadays it is usually made for sequence fixing and training tasks, virtual commissioning comes alternatively into action showing up to test energy optimization attempts preventing the premature execution issues that could happen. This project has developed a VC model of a gantry crane system from a Volvo operation including energy consumption monitoring, aiming to test its suitability on energy optimization tasks. The development has been accomplished following the design and creation methodology through the use of Matlab, Codesys and Simumatik 3D and quantitative results are given specifically from different energy modeling drafts until reaching the closest result to the real system consumption. Once the true to reality model was developed, the optimization test was carried out decreasing the maximum velocity of the system behavior to see the energy consumption variation. This constitutes the ultimate test and its results are discussed coming into the conclusion that the VC model is suitable for energy optimization of the treated operation but would require reconfigurations for aggressive velocity changes.