Digital Twin-Based Energy Modeling

of Industrial Robots

Ke Yan1,3(&), Wenjun Xu1,3, Bitao Yao2,3, Zude Zhou1,

and Duc Truong Pham4
1
School of Information Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology,
Wuhan 430070, China
[email protected],
{xuwenjun,zudezhou}@whut.edu.cn
2
School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering,
Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
[email protected]
3
Hubei Key Laboratory of Broadband Wireless Communication and Sensor
Networks, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
4
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham,
Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
[email protected]

Abstract. The rapid development of robotic technologies in recent years has

made industrial robots (IRs) increasingly used in various manufacturing process,
and the energy problem of IRs has been paid great attention because of their
massive adoption and intensive energy consumption. Energy saving of IRs
therefore is in great demand for environment protection and enterprise cost
reduction, and the energy modeling of IRs is the basis to achieve such goal. In
this paper, a novel energy modeling method of IRs based on digital twin is
proposed and the system framework is established, which mainly includes the
physics-based energy model of the physical IRs, the 3D virtual robot model used
to visualize and simulate on the energy consumption of IRs, the digital twin data
and the ontology-based unified digitized description model for mapping the
virtual model to the corresponding physical energy model. Furthermore, the
mapping relation between the physical data and ontology attributes is estab-
lished to enable the interaction between the physical space and the cyber space
of the whole system. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed
method is validated by a case study, and the results show that the digital twin-
based energy modeling method can be efficiently used for the simulation and
prediction of the energy consumption of IRs.

Keywords: Energy modeling
Industrial robots
Digital twin

Unified digitized description

1 Introduction

The world has witnessed the continuous development of manufacturing in past dec-
ades. As the backbone of the modern industrialized society, manufacturing always
plays an important role in promoting the growth of national economy [1, 2]. Industrial
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018
L. Li et al. (Eds.): AsiaSim 2018, CCIS 946, pp. 333–348, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2853-4_26
334 K. Yan et al.

robots (IRs), which enable the end products produced more efficiently and intelligently,
are widely utilized in various manufacturing process since they provide high precision,
repeatability, programmability and high automated capability. However, the massive
application of IRs is often accompanied with high level of energy consumption, a
recent research showed that the energy consumption of IRs is approximately 8% total
electrical energy consumed in manufacturing process [3]. At this point, it is in urgent
need of energy consumption optimization and energy efficient improvement of IRs.
With the need of energy minimization of IRs, the accurate monitoring, evaluating
and prediction for energy consumption of IRs should be taken into account firstly, and
energy modelling of IRs is an effective way to meet these demands. However, there
exist many challenges on the modelling of robot energy consumption, the application
of which is also limited. New methods for energy consumption modeling of IRs are
required to be developed.
Digital twin, a novel concept that refers to virtual substitutes of real world objects
[4], has aroused broad concern along with the amazing growth and advancements in
computer science and information technologies. The idea of digital twin is to create a
digital counterpart to mimic the characteristics and behaviors of its corresponding twin.
As an important aspect driving the future of manufacturing, digital twin has many
remarkable advantages and provides a new way for robot energy modeling, which can
assist in visualization, simulation and prediction for energy consumption of IRs as well
as decision support for enterprises.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section gives a review
of related works. Section 3 describes the system framework of the proposed method.
The details for energy modelling of IRs based on digital twin is explained in Sect. 4. In
Sect. 5, a case study is presented to validate the proposed method. Finally, the con-
clusion and the future work is discussed in Sect. 6.

2 Related Works

The robotic energy consumption reduction has become a major objective for many
researchers and groups, there have been plenty of studies that focus on it. For instance,
the work described in [5] aims at improving energy efficiency of pneumatic drive by
hardware modification. The research introduced in [6] emphasizes the energy con-
sumption optimization for multi-robot system rather than an individual robot. In
another respect, many researchers are interested in minimizing energy consumption of
IRs by means of robotic energy-efficient trajectory planning [7–9]. Others such as [10]
focus on optimizing operating parameters for energy saving of IRs, in which experi-
mental investigations are conducted by using a specific IR.
As for the modeling and evaluation of robot energy consumption, there are little
literature concerned with it. Some researches such as [11, 12] focus on processing and
analyzing the real data from direct measurement of robot energy consumption, which
combines the direct energy measurement and computer evaluation. In [13], a mathe-
matical approach which follows from a specific expression of an energy consumption
equation is represented. Because of the advanced computer and information tech-
nologies, the application of simulation tools for energy modeling of IRs is also studied.
 Digital Twin-Based Energy Modeling of Industrial Robots 335

In [14], the power consumption is calculated and dynamic behavior is analyzed for a
six axis IR in assembly system by the combination of simulation and experiment.
Literature [15] proposes a computer-aided modelling approach to model the energy
consumption of industrial articulated robots. In [16], an energy modeling method based
on the simulated power data and parameter identification is proposed to calculate the
energy consumption of IRs whose torques are difficult to be directly measured.
Digital twin has received much attention in academic circles at present. The concept
of digital twin emerged from the course on Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in
2002 [17]. As an effective way to link the cyber space with the physical space, digital
twin has gained further research and applications in some fields. The U.S. Air Force
Research Laboratory utilized Digital Twin for the maintenance and lifetime prediction
of aerocraft [18]. Dassault built an 3D platform based on Digital Twin to optimize the
product entities in physical world [19]. In [20], the digital twin workshop is proposed
which consist of physical workshop, cyber workshop, workshop service system and
digital twin data. A digital twin-driven method is presented in [21] to support and
improve the efficiency and intelligence in product design, manufacturing and service
phases. In [22], it studies the modeling method for digital twin workshop on the base of
physical perception data to drive the workshop more intelligent.
In this paper, a novel method which combines the energy modeling of IRs with
digital twin is proposed and the system framework is developed, which may aid to
robot energy consumption simulation and prediction.

3 System Framework

Digital twin is an effective way to realize the communication and interaction between
physical and cyber world. Applying the digital twin to robotic energy modeling will
enable the simulation and data visualization for energy consumption of IRs as well as
facilitate the comprehensiveness and accuracy of energy consumption prediction.
Based on digital twin, a novel system framework for energy modeling of IRs is built, as
shown in Fig. 1.
There are mainly four parts contained in the system framework, including the
physics-based energy model of the physical IRs, the virtual robot model, the ontology-
based unified digitized description model and the digital twin data. In the physical
space, the physical energy model is responsible for energy consumption calculation of
IRs. For the establishment of physical energy model, the dynamic parameters identi-
fication is important and the data like angle, velocity, acceleration, torque etc. are all
necessary. Hence the multi-source data are collected and stored firstly by using data
perception devices like robot controller, smart meter and torque sensor, etc. After data
pre-processing, the parameter identification is conducted with the help of Denavit-
Hartenberg (D-H) notation, robotic kinematics and dynamics, thereby the physical
energy model can be obtained by parameter identification based on the perception data.
In the cyber space, the 3D virtual robot should be built to carry out the visualization,
simulation and prediction of robot energy consumption. Besides, an unified digitized
description model of IRs based on ontology should be developed, which is significant
to provide knowledge support for the virtual robot and map it to the corresponding
336 K. Yan et al.

physical energy model. Finally, the digital twin data refers to all data both from
physical space and cyber space, including the multi-source perception data, calculating
data, inference data, data of virtual model and simulation data, etc. which provides data
driving for the digital twin-based energy model.

Physical space Cyber space

Physical IR Multi-source data perception Virtual IR Visualization and simulation

Robot status
information
Robot
controller Kinematics
data
Smart meter Joint torque
data

Torque sensor Energy data

Data Parameter
D-H notation Ontology Knowledge description
pre-processing identification
Forward Association
kinematics Association rules
Energy Mapping
Inverse
dynamics model Inference

Physics-based energy model of IRs Unified digitized description model

Digital twin data

• Perception data • Data of virtual model
• Calculating data • Simulation data
• Inference data •

Fig. 1. System framework.

4 Energy Modeling of Industrial Robots Based on Digital

Twin
4.1 Physics-Based Energy Modeling of IRs
In order to build the physical energy model of IRs, a linear model of torque should be
developed, D-H notation, robotic kinematics and dynamics are needed as prior
knowledge. By the design of excitation trajectory, the data for dynamic parameters
identification can be acquired. After data pre-processing, the identification process can
be completed by solving linear equations. The last step is to validate the correctness of
the energy model. If the obtained model is not satisfied, then the modeling procedure
should be repeated. The whole process is shown in Fig. 2(a).
Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) Notation. The definition of robot parameters is quite
crucial for kinematics and dynamics calculations in the forthcoming steps. The
Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) notation is widely used for the description of robot
parameters. By using D-H notation, robot base and each joint are assigned with a
frame, the z-axis of the assigned frame is aligned with the rotational axis of the
according joint. Figure 2(b) gives an application of the D-H notation on the robot
model, the robot base is fixed with frame 0 which is used as world frame. L1–L5 are
robot structural parameters, which are given by the robot manufacturer.
 Digital Twin-Based Energy Modeling of Industrial Robots 337

Priori Knowledge of IR
L4 L5
Danevit-Hartenberg Rigid Body Forward Inverse
Notation Dynamics Kinematics Dynamics x
TCP
Data L3 Z Y
Linear Model of Processing 3 Z
Data Acquisition Y
Torque
x x x
Identification
algorithm
Excitation
Parameter Trajectory Design
x 5 Y
Identification L2 Z Y
Robot dynamic
4,6 Z
parameters Objective Z
identification Physics-based Z
Energy model
Function
2
and Constraints Y
Y
1 x
Validate Model
Not Satisfied L1
Satisfied Z

Valid robot dynamic Energy Consumption Y

Result
parameters Prediction for IR
0 x

Fig. 2. (a) Procedure of physics-based energy modeling of IRs. (b) Robot’s frame system.

Linear Model of Torque. A dynamic model should be obtained before parameter

identification. There are several approaches to derive the dynamic equation of IRs, like
Newton-Euler or Lagrangian method. The dynamic equation from both approaches can
be written as the form shown in (1) [23].

_ /Þ þ Gðq; /Þ ¼ s
M ðq; /Þ€q þ Cðq; q; ð1Þ

Where: for a n degree-of-freedom robot, n-vector of joint torques s is a function of

n-vector of joint angle q, angular velocity q,_ acceleration € q as well as dynamic
_ /Þ includes Coriolis and
parameters /. M ðq; /Þ is called the inertia matrix, C ðq; q;
centrifugal terms, Gðq; /Þ represents gravity terms. The torques is nonlinear in the
dynamic parameters in (1), which is complicated and not suitable for fast calculation.
By means of robot kinematic and dynamic analysis, Eq. (1) can be formulated linearly
with respect to dynamic parameters. Using the base parameters [23], a linear model of
form shown in (2) can be obtained.

_ €qÞ/linear
s ¼ H ðq; q; ð2Þ

Where s is the joint torque vector, H is the nk observation matrix which is
determined by the robot motion data only. /linear represents the k-vector of base
parameters. Friction, which influences significantly on robot dynamic behavior, is not
considered in (1) and (2). Hence it is greatly necessary to compensate the friction effect.
Friction is usually complicated and high nonlinear, a simplified friction model which is
a combination of Coulomb and viscous friction is commonly used for robotic appli-
cations [24]. As shown in (3), note that friction torque sf is linear in unknown
338 K. Yan et al.

parameters fc and fv , which is in line with the structure in (2). fc an fv are the coefficients
of Coulomb and viscous friction respectively.

sf ¼ fc signðq_ Þ þ fv q_ ð3Þ

Excitation Trajectory Design. The optimal parameter identification requires specially

designed robot trajectory, and it is essential to ensure whether the excitation is sufficient
for accurate and fast parameter estimation in the presence of disturbances. Trajectory
parameterization based on finite Fourier series can provides periodic and bandlimited
excitation [23], which helps to simplify and improve the accuracy of parameter esti-
mation. It can be expressed by (4).
XN     
qi ðtÞ ¼ qi;0 þ k¼1
ai;k sin kxf t þ bi;k cos kxf t ð4Þ

Where xf is base frequency which is the same for all joints, t represents time, qi;0 is
the initial position of joint, the Fourier series of each joint includes 2N + 1 parameters.
In order to reduce the estimation error, the input trajectory need to be optimized and the
condition number of observation matrix can be a criterion for optimization, reducing
the condition number will help to improve the identification accuracy. By solving the
nonlinear optimization problem, the coefficients ai;k and bi;k can be obtained. Mean-
while, there exists limitations on robot joints like position, velocity, acceleration as well
as the Cartesian space, these constraints should be considered for solving the opti-
mization problem.
Data Acquisition and Parameter Identification. The calculated optimized excitation
trajectory will be programmed in the robot controller so that the robot can execute the
trajectory continuously. Meanwhile, the data will be collected with a constant fre-
quency. Joint positions and torques are monitored by joint encoder, angle velocities and
accelerations can be calculated by the differential of positions. After denoising and
smoothing process for measured data, the observation matrix and vector of torques can
be calculated, thus the over determined equations showed in (5) can be obtained.
2 3 2 3
s1 H ðq1 ; q_ 1 ; €q1 Þ
6 . 7 6 .. 7
C ¼ 4 .. 5 ¼ 4 . 5/linear ¼ W/linear ð5Þ
sr H ðqr ; q_ r ; €qr Þ

Where for k ¼ 1; . . .; r, sk and H ðqk ; q_ k ; €qk Þ are the torque vector and identification
matrix respectively based on the data from the kth sampling. By using the least square
method, the estimated value of parameters is
 T 1 T
^
/ linear ¼ W W W C ð6Þ
 Digital Twin-Based Energy Modeling of Industrial Robots 339

Energy Consumption Calculating. After the robot dynamic parameters has been
identified, the joint torques can be calculated based on (2). The power calculation of
each joint is performed by (7).

Pout;i ¼ si q_ i ð7Þ

Consequently, the total power of robot is

Xn
Ptotal ¼ i¼1
Pout;i þ Pconstant ð8Þ

Here, Pconstant is the power consumption when the robot is in standby mode. Then
the process ends in computing robot energy consumption as shown in (9).
Z tf
E¼ Ptotal dt ð9Þ
t0

4.2 Unified Digitized Description of IRs Driven by Physical Energy

Model

Unified Digitized Description of IRs Based on Ontology. The linkage and correct
mapping between the virtual model and corresponding physical energy model is crucial
for the bidirectional interaction. Hence a unified digitized description model of IRs is
built to provide knowledge support for the virtual robots. According to the physical
energy model of IRs explained above, the factors that affect energy consumption
significantly in the running process of IRs include joint speed, acceleration, joint
torque, payload, etc. We organize the digitized description model of IRs in terms of
robot basic information and running process information. Robot basic information
mainly presents the information which determines a specific robot. Running process
information includes the real-time and dynamic parameters of a running IR, which is
mainly used to reflect the current running status and energy consumption of IR.
Ontology is the formal specification of conceptual models which has well-machine-
understanding performance to enable the interacting and knowledge-transmission
easily. We utilized OWL (Web Ontology Language) in this paper to build the ontology
model for the unified digitized description of IRs explained above. Protégé, a general
ontology editor, was used to realize the ontology structure.
The formal description of robot basic information ontology is shown in (10),
IR_Information is defined as a class which describes the basic information of IR. The
ontology model of IR_Information is given in Fig. 3(a).

IR Information ¼ ðIR Name; IR ID; IR Type; Manufacturer; IR Weight; Controlled Axes;

Arm Movement Type ; . . .Þ
ð10Þ
340 K. Yan et al.

Fig. 3. (a) Ontology of robot basic information. (b) Ontology of running process information.

The following definition describes the running process information of IR.

IR RunProcess ¼ ðCurrent State; Joint Position; Joint Speed; Joint Acc; Joint Torque;
Payload; Run Power; Energy Consumption; Run time; . . .Þ
ð11Þ

IR_RunProcess is defined by datatype properties that link individuals to data, which

represents the dynamic parameters about running status and energy consumption of
IRs. Dynamic information such as joint position, joint speed, energy consumption, etc.
is involved in the ontology model of IR_RunProcess, as shown in Fig. 3(b).
The formal description of industrial robot ontology is given in (12).

Industrial Robot ¼ ðIR Information; IR RunProcessÞ ð12Þ

Where IR_Information and IR_RunProcess reflect the robot basic information and
running process information introduced above respectively. Industrial_Robot is defined
as a class that has IR_Information and IR_RunProcess. By doing this, a virtual robot
which is linked to the corresponding individual of Industrial_Robot can obtain the two
kinds of information. The ontology model of Industrial_Robot is shown in Fig. 4(a).

Physics-based Unified digitized

energy model description model
Data Knowledge
DataBase Ontology attributes

RobotName IR_Name
RobotID IR_ID
Robot basic Mapping
RobotType IR_Type IR_Information
information
ControlledAxes Controlled_Axes

JointPosition Joint_Position
JointSpeed Joint_Speed
Running process JointTorque Joint_Torque
Mapping IR_RunProcess
information RunTime Run_Time
EnergyConsumption Energy_Consumption

Fig. 4. (a) Ontology of industrial robot. (b) Mapping relationship.

Mapping Relationship Between Digitized Model and Physical Model. In this paper,
the mapping relationship between the ontology attributes and real-time data is
 Digital Twin-Based Energy Modeling of Industrial Robots 341

established, as shown in Fig. 4(b). The developed knowledge structure above plays a
critical role to give a bond of interaction between the virtual model and respective
physical energy model. Since the data and information from the physical energy model
are changeable in the running process of IRs, the ontology attributes should be altered
accordingly so as to reflect the current status of IRs effectively and precisely. However,
the ontology editor Protégé just creates the initial structure of ontology and it can only
modify ontology manually. In this respect, it is required to build the mapping rela-
tionship which associates the ontology attributes and real-time data. Jena, a free and
open source Java framework for building semantic applications, is used to read and
modify the established ontology. The data from the physics-based energy model will be
stored in database firstly, in the light of the established mapping relationship, the value
of these parameters stored in database can be added to the instance of ontology model
dynamically using Jena, then the instance of ontology will be updated over time to get
the current information of IRs according to the real-time data.

4.3 Integrated Energy Model of IRs Based on Digital Twin

In the light of the discussion above, an energy model based on digital twin which
integrates the physics-based energy model, unified digitized description model and
virtual model of IRs is constructed, as shown in Fig. 5. On the physics-based energy
model layer, the energy modeling of physical IRs is conducted based on parameter
identification. When a robot trajectory in joint space is generated, the energy con-
sumption to execute this trajectory will be computed by the physical energy model of
the corresponding IR, the real-time data from physical energy model such as joint
position, joint torque and energy consumption, etc. will be stored in database to provide
data drive for digitized description model and relevant virtual model. On the digitized
description model layer, the unified knowledge description of IRs based on ontology is
realized to give knowledge support for mapping the physical energy model to corre-
sponding virtual robot model. The established ontology model is stored as OWL files.
Meanwhile, according to the established mapping relationship above, the value of
ontology attributes can be modified and updated based on the real-time data in database
using Jena, thus the important connection between the physical energy model and
digitized description model can be implemented. On the virtual model layer, the 3D
virtual IR, as the real mapping to the physical one, can be realized in ROS (Robot
Operating system), which is an open source and meta-operating system for robotic
application development. With the knowledge support from the digitized description
model and data drive from the physics-based energy model, the virtual model can
perform the data visualization and motion simulation in virtual space for robot energy
consumption.
For the establishment of virtual robot model in ROS, URDF (Unified Robot
Description Format), MoveIt and RViz are utilized respectively, as shown in Fig. 6.
URDF is used to record the whole information of a virtual robot. MoveIt, a state of art
open source software, is used to perform the task of motion planning and control, and
RViz is responsible for 3D visualization and simulation.
342 K. Yan et al.

Virtual model layer

Motion simulation Data visualization

Unified
Digitized description Mapping
Knowledge
model layer relationship
Ontology description

Database
Basic Joint Joint Energy
information position torque consumption
Physics-based
energy model layer
Energy modeling of physical IR

Fig. 5. The integrated energy model of IRs based on digital twin.

Rviz
Robot Shape Manipulation 3-D model
visulization
Robot Size Motion Planning
Data
visualization
Robot Color Motion Controll
Motion
Kinematics
3-D Perception simulation
Information
URDF Description of IR MoveIt! RViz

Fig. 6. The establishment of virtual robot model.

URDF is a language based on XML to describe the simulation model of a robot,

which contains the information about virtual robot model such as the shape, size, color
and kinematics information, etc. In URDF, the virtual robot model is specified using
primarily two language elements, namely, link and joint. A link element represents a
rigid body part of a robot by specifying its origin, mass, inertia, geometry, etc. whereas
a joint element represents the connection between two links, the joint name, joint limits
and joint type, e.g. revolute, continuous, or prismatic, are specified in element joint.
After the virtual robot model are defined correctly in URDF, the created virtual robot
can be displayed by importing the corresponding URDF file to RViz, as one of the core
functions of ROS, RViz makes it convenient for users to display the virtual robot
movements vividly in a 3D environment. For example, Fig. 7 gives the URDF spec-
ification of a KUKA KR6 R700 industrial robot and the corresponding 3D virtual
model in RViz. Besides, in order to achieve the motion control on the virtual robot,
MoveIt is required. MoveIt is the primary software framework in ROS and provide the
capability for motion planning, manipulation, 3D perception, kinematics analysis,
control and navigation. By means of using MoveIt software, we can control the virtual
robot to perform the specified or planned trajectories.
 Digital Twin-Based Energy Modeling of Industrial Robots 343

Base_link joint_a3 Link_5

xyz: 0 0 0 xyz: 0 0 0.4
rpy: 0 -0 0 rpy: 0 -0 0 xyz: 0.08 0 0
rpy: 0 -0 0
Base_link-base joint_a1 link_3 joint_a6
xyz: 0 0 0.035
rpy: 0 -0 0
base link_1 joint_a4 link_6
xyz: 0.025 0 0 xyz: 0 0 0
rpy: 0 -0 0 rpy: 0 1.5708 0
joint_a2 link_4 joint_a6-tool
xyz: 0.365 0 0
xyz: 0.315 0 0 rpy: 0 -0 0
rpy: 0 -0 0
link_2 joint_a5 tool0

Fig. 7. (a) The URDF specification of KUKA KR6 R700. (b) The corresponding 3-D virtual
model in RViz.

5 Case Study and Performance Analysis

The rationality and effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in this section and a
set of experiments are investigated. We take KUKA KR6 R700 sixx as IRs’ instance,
as shown in Fig. 8. It is a compact, versatile and flexible six-axis articulated robot
manufactured by KUKA Company for particularly high working speeds. KUKA KR6
R700 sixx not only works efficiently with high speeds but also provides high-precision,
which makes it do well in many fields.

Fig. 8. KUKA KR6 R700 sixx industrial robot.

The physical energy model of this KUKA KR6 R700 sixx robot is established
firstly based on parameter identification. There are mainly three steps:
1. MATLAB software is used to build the dynamics program of robot and deduce the
symbolic expression of actuator torque, then the linear model of torque for
parameter identification can be obtained base on it. After that, the excitation tra-
jectory will be calculated in MATLAB.
2. The computed excitation trajectory from MATLAB is programed and executed by
the robot, simultaneously, the motion data and torques of robot are sampled in each
time interval of 0.012 s by joint encoders.
344 K. Yan et al.

3. The obtained motion data from joint encoders can be used to calculate the coeffi-
cient matrix in the linear model of torque, and then we can identify the dynamic
parameters using the least-square method.
It is necessary to validate the correctness of the established physical energy model.
The verify experiment is conducted to compare the modeling power with the mea-
surement power from the developed smart electric meter when the robot moves with a
random trajectory. Figure 9 gives the trajectory for validation and the compared result
between the modeling power and measurement power. Since energy consumption is a
function of power based on time integral, the modeling and measurement energy
consumption are computed respectively as shown in (13) and (14). The relative error
between the modeling and measurement energy consumption is calculated by (15).

Fig. 9. (a) The trajectory while joint2, joint3 and joint4 move for validating the physical energy
model. (b) The compared result between the modeling power and measurement power.

Z t2
EnergyModel ¼ PModel dt ¼ 559:59 J ð13Þ
t1

Z t2
EnergyMeasure ¼ PMeasure dt ¼ 598:78 J ð14Þ
t1

kEnergyModel  EnergyMeasure k
Error ¼  100% ¼ 6:54% ð15Þ
EnergyMeasure

The compared result reveals that the modeling power is approximately associated
with the trend of measured power. Analyzing the energy consumption from the
physical energy model and measurement, there are mainly two reasons for the differ-
ences between the model and measurement. The first one is that the measurement
power includes the power consumption of the motor torque, and the power loss of the
motor. However, the power loss of the motor is regarded as constant in the physical
energy model while it actually varies from the payload, temperature, velocity, etc. The
other reason for the differences is the simplification of the used linear friction model.
For the linkage between the physical energy model and virtual model, the KUKA
KR6 R700 sixx is described in the proposed ontology model by inserting individuals,
including the basic information and running status information. Jena, a java API for
ontology, is used to handle ontology. An individual of Industrial_Robot: KUKA_
KR6_R700 is built, as shown in Fig. 10. The connection between KUKA_KR6_R700
 Digital Twin-Based Energy Modeling of Industrial Robots 345

and respective individuals of IR_Information and IR_RunProcess has been established,

through which the individual KUKA_KR6_R700 can provide the basic information and
running status information about this KUKA robot.

Fig. 10. Individual description of KUKA KR6 R700 sixx robot.

For achieving the simulation and data visualization on the energy consumption of
the KUKA KR6 R700 sixx robot, the corresponding 3D virtual model is implemented
in ROS. At the basis of the established physical energy model and knowledge
description model, the developed 3D virtual model can perform moving with a spec-
ified trajectory and displaying the relevant data during the running process. To illustrate
the feasibility and effectiveness of the integrated energy model of IRs, the trajectory
shown in Fig. 11 is taken as an instance of process in robot movement, the KUKA KR6
R700 sixx robot is programmed to perform the process that is to move the robot from
the initial configuration as shown in Fig. 12(a) to the final configuration as shown in
Fig. 12(b). The total power and energy consumption are calculated by the physical
energy model and stored in database, with the established individual of
KUKA_KR6_R700, the related information during the process for executing this tra-
jectory is read and loaded to ROS, thereby we can run the virtual robot model based on
the obtained information, Fig. 13 gives the simulation result after the running process
has finished. We could see that the virtual robot can move with the desired trajectory, in
addition, the information including energy consumption in the process can be displayed

Fig. 11. The trajectory of the process in robot movement.

346 K. Yan et al.

dynamically as well in the interface. Our experiment shows that the developed virtual
model can simulate correctly on robot energy consumption, which can contribute in
energy consumption monitoring and prediction of IRs.

Fig. 12. (a) Initial configuration. (b) final configuration.

Fig. 13. The simulation result of the process, the related information is shown in the interface.

6 Conclusion and Future Work

In this paper, a novel system framework focused on energy modeling of IRs based on
digital twin is proposed. In the light of that, the physical energy model of IRs based on
parameter identification is built firstly, then we propose the unified description model
for IRs using ontology, and the linkage between the physical energy model and
description model is built based on the mapping relationship. Besides, the 3D virtual
model for visualization and simulation is realized in ROS. Finally, to illustrate the
effectiveness of the proposed method, a case study on a KUKA KR6 R700 sixx
industrial robot is demonstrated. In general, the digital twin-based energy model is
effective in energy consumption prediction and simulation for IRs. In the future, further
 Digital Twin-Based Energy Modeling of Industrial Robots 347

research will be investigated to improve the accuracy of energy model and perfect the
virtual model. Energy optimization for IRs based on the proposed approach is also
planned in the following study.

Acknowledgment. This research is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China

(Grant No. 51775399), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant
No. 2018III034GX), and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK
(Grant No. EP/N018524/1).

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