Page 131 - Toucpad robotics C11
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∑ Medium-sized industrial servo motors (e.g., for robotic arms): 50 Watts to 500 Watts (drawing a few to tens of
amperes at 24V to 48V).
∑ Large industrial servo motors (e.g., for heavy-duty industrial robots): Hundreds of Watts to several Kilowatts.
Sensors
Compared to motors, sensors generally have much lower power requirements. However, in robots with many sensors or
high-performance sensors, their cumulative power draw can become significant.
Infrared (IR) Sensors and Basic Proximity Sensors
Power Consumption: Very low.
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Factors Influencing Consumption: Depends on the power of the infrared Light Emitting Diode emitter and the
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sensitivity of the receiver.
Typical Range: 10 milliwatts to 100 milliwatts (drawing a few milliamperes).
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Ultrasonic Sensors
Power Consumption: Low to moderate.
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Factors Influencing Consumption: The power required to generate the ultrasonic pulse and process the echo.
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Typical Range: 50 milliwatts to 500 milliwatts (drawing tens of milliamperes to a few hundreds of milliamperes).
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Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs - Gyroscopes and Accelerometers)
Power Consumption: Extremely low for basic units, moderate for high-performance units.
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Factors Influencing Consumption: Complexity of the internal processing, sampling rate, and communication
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interface (e.g., I2C, SPI).
Typical Range: 1 milliwatt to 100 milliwatts (drawing microamperes to tens of milliamperes).
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Cameras (Vision Sensors)
Power Consumption: Moderate to high, especially for high-resolution, high-frame-rate cameras or those with
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onboard image processing.
Factors Influencing Consumption: Sensor resolution, frame rate, internal image processing, presence of additional
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features like infrared illumination or depth sensing.
Typical Range:
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∑ Small low-resolution camera modules: 100 milliwatts to 1 Watt.
∑ High-resolution cameras with onboard processing (e.g., for computer vision in autonomous robots): 1 Watt to 10
Watts or more.
Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) Sensors
Power Consumption: Often among the highest for sensors, due to the powerful lasers and rapid scanning mechanisms.
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Factors Influencing Consumption: Number of laser beams, rotational speed (for spinning LIDAR), range, and resolution.
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Typical Range: 5 Watts to 50 Watts or even more for high-performance automotive-grade LIDAR units. Some small,
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solid-state LIDAR units might consume less.
Other Actuators
Besides electric motors, robots can use other types of actuators with varying power requirements.
Pneumatic Actuators
Power Consumption: The actuators themselves (cylinders, valves) consume very little power. However, the air
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compressor that supplies the pressurised air is often a significant power consumer.
Factors Influencing Consumption: Size and duty cycle of the compressor, the pressure required, and the frequency
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of actuation.
Typical Range: The compressor can range from hundreds of Watts to several Kilowatts.
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Electrical and Control Systems

