This paper summarizes various methods of the energy efficient use of medium and high payload industrial robots. Approaches and according savings potential are evaluated for methods like intelligent brake management - release time and power reduction, the temporal storage of the robot's kinetic energy with capacitive energy buffer of controller's DC-Bus, the energy exchange among robot controllers is proposed. Strategic usage alternatives like robot choice, shutdown during the production-free time and setting into a particular standby mode are compared. The energy saving potentials per each method are estimated according to real body-shop production characteristics.

This paper presents the experimental and simulation results of industrial robot's recuperated energy saving approaches. Two complementary alternatives- a capacitive energy buffer on the robot's DC-bus is evaluated and a novel approach, the robot EnergyTeam has been proposed. The principle of robot EnergyTeam is the DC-bus merging among various number of industrial robot power controllers thus enabling a controlled energy flow among the robots that decelerate and, therefore, recuperate the energy and those that simultaneously require a peak power supply for the acceleration. Cost efficiency is estimated considering the characteristics in robotics of real production in the automobile industry.

This paper quantitatively reports about potential energy savings on robotic assembly lines for the automotive industry. The key aspect of the proposed approach is that both cell production rate and robot hardware limitations are considered as strict constraints, so that no plant revision is needed. The methodology relies on: a) calculation of energy-optimal trajectories, by means of time scaling, concerning the robots' motion from the last process point to the home positions; b) reduction of the energy consumption via earlier release of the actuator brake when the robots are kept stationary. Simulation results are presented, which are based on the production timing characteristics measured on a real plant.

The article gives an overview of various researches dealing with smart or intelligent street lighting systems, and what is meant with this term in different countries. Several available architectures of smart street lighting systems as well as those for future are described and discussed. Further some researches and developments of such systems in Riga Technical University are explained with the examples, also showing preliminary practical energy saving results of tests in real conditions of Riga city infrastructure. This is the first part of articles series about this research.

The increasing importance of continuingly complex Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) challenges and encourages universities worldwide to organize up-to-date CPS oriented educational programs. The Erasmus+ project “CybPhys” aims to support CPS oriented educational programs in Belarus and Ukraine. We put forward a hypothesis that the educational situation, training opportunities, situation of the labor market, and general economic development are related to each other and can vary depending on the region. In order to validate our hypothesis and to provide input to curricula modernizations, an in-depth study in the form of surveys was conducted in the years 2019–2020. The results of the study showed that the differences between the perceptions of stakeholders in different regions of one country were more significant than the deviations between the global evaluation marks obtained from Belarusian and Ukrainian respondents. In order to increase the synergy of the CybPhys partners, the transdisciplinary and T-shape skills approaches are introduced to the education programs of the partner’s universities. An innovative ICT based teaching and learning environment and associated teaching methodologies will be developed. The research provides valuable input to the development of industry and research-oriented cross-domain study programs in Cyber-Physical Systems focused on the needs of Belarusian and Ukrainian industries.