Advanced Trajectory Planning for Production Energy Estimation

Abstract

This paper is based on a current research project and describes advanced trajectory planning methods which aim to contribute to the estimation of the energy consumption in the production of goods. The energy a product requires during its operation is the object of many activities in research and development nowadays. However, the energy necessary for the production of goods is very often not analyzed in so much detail. The energy consumption in a product production and disposal is determined very early in its development process by designers and engineers, for example by selection of raw materials, explicit and implicit requirements concerning the manufacturing and assembly processes or by decisions concerning the product architecture. Today, developers and engineers dispose of manifold design and simulation tools which can help to predict the energy consumption during a product operation relatively accurately. In contrast, tools with the objective to predict the energy consumption in production and disposal are unavailable, apart from the first material databases such as Eco Materials Adviser in Autodesk. Transportation processes are the important aspects of production. Product components and unfinished products have to be transported from the receipt of goods to stock and then to the manufacturing or assembling station during all phases of the manufacturing and assembling processes. The energy consumption estimation of these logistic process is only possible if probable and sensible routes of movements are used as a basis. This paper aims to present an approach to apply trajectory planning methods in order to develop such routes and consequently to be able to estimate the energy consumption.