Establishing Energy Efficiency as Criterion for Virtual Commissioning of Automated Assembly Systems

Physics engines, originating from gaming industry, are lately employed to perform realistic virtual simulations in early phases of assembly systems development processes. In particular, physics engine-based Virtual Commissioning boosts level of maturity of assembly systems due to advanced real-time collision detection and precise cycle time determination. This paper describes the improvement of DAIMLER's Virtual Commissioning process by virtually predicting and visualizing mechanic energy consumption of automated assembly system components using a physics engine. Based on simulation results, established approaches for reducing energy consumption of automated assembly system can be implemented in the virtual model.