Spline-based trajectory generation to estimate execution time in a robotic assembly cell

An execution time estimation model is proposed to accurately estimate the execution time in a robotic assembly workcell. The current study exploits a trajectory generation, which is based on cubic splines in particular, because of their natural characteristics, i.e., joint scalability and computational simplicity. It takes into account task specifications and motion capabilities of the robotic arm to estimate the execution time of a task plan. The estimation accuracy is evaluated through a comparison of the computed task times with the results of a simulation of an industrial robot to execute a series of task plans. The evaluation has been done based on the control system (R-30iB Plus) of the Fanuc robot CR-7iA/L in Roboguide software (RG). The results show that the proposed framework is capable of estimating the task time with reasonable accuracy. Possible directions to further improve this accuracy are discussed.