06 - Yaskawa: Energy-efficient robots
Yaskawa offers a technical solution for feeding robot braking energy back into the power grid - as standard and without additional hardware. All larger 'Motoman' robots in the series from a payload of around 50 kg and with the current 'YRC1000' robot controller can convert kinetic energy from downward and sideways movements directly into 400 V alternating current at 50 Hz and feed it back into the grid. Depending on the movement pattern, this significantly reduces the robot's energy requirements. Industrial robots perform a wide range of tasks - such as handling, palletizing, joining or processing - including many downward or sideways movements, during which the servomotors can dissipate energy and potentially generate electricity. Until now, in older or other robot models on the market, the resulting energy has been converted into waste heat by electrical resistors and released unused into the environment. With the Yaskawa solution, the electrical energy is fed back into the operator network and reused, even without additional hardware.