Reducing Pick-and-Place Cycle Time: Approaches and Trade-offs

The landscape

Pick-and-place cycle time is determined by motion time plus settling time plus process time (gripper actuation, vision confirmation). Settling time — the wait for the TCP to stabilize after each motion — is often the largest controllable variable. Common approaches to reducing it carry different trade-offs:

Approach	Strengths	Trade-offs
Trajectory optimization (S-curves, blending)	Widely available; reduces peak vibration	May increase motion time; limited by trajectory planner capabilities
Faster robot platform	Higher joint speeds and accelerations	Capital cost; may not address settling time if vibration characteristics are similar
Reduced payload / lighter EOAT	Lowers inertia, reduces vibration amplitude	Constrains part size and gripper design
Mechanical damping (passive/active)	Directly absorbs vibration energy	Adds mass, cost, and maintenance; may reduce payload capacity
Model-based vibration compensation	Reduces vibration at the source; preserves motion aggressiveness	Requires per-arm calibration and a supported command interface

How vibration compensation works in this context

Model-based feedforward compensation modifies the trajectory commands so the robot's flexible modes are less excited during motion. The arm follows the same geometric path but arrives at each stop with less residual oscillation. This directly reduces the settling time required before the gripper can actuate.

Key characteristics:

Per-arm modeling: Calibration captures the vibration behavior of the specific arm, not a generic platform model
No speed reduction: The robot moves at the same commanded speed — the improvement comes from cleaner stops, not slower motions
No production sensors: Compensation is feedforward; no vibration measurement required during normal operation
Configuration-dependent: The model accounts for how vibration characteristics change with arm configuration and payload
Reusable: The calibrated model applies across production runs without recalibration unless payload or mounting changes materially

Demonstrated performance

Greater than 80% vibration reduction in testing
Up to 2x throughput improvement by eliminating settling time overhead at precision stops
Shaping operates at 250 Hz command rate
No permanent sensors or mechanical modifications required
Cloud-based model identification with local runtime execution
Containerized deployment for production environments

Evaluation path

A typical evaluation starts with a single arm in a representative pick-and-place application. Calibration (accelerometer-based, typically under one hour), model identification (cloud API), and runtime integration (between trajectory planner and robot SDK). Before-and-after settling time measurement validates the improvement with your own data.

Current platform support: Standard Bots, UFACTORY, Trossen, and Denso.

What this means for your product

If settling time is limiting the throughput of a pick-and-place system built on an existing robot platform, vibration compensation provides a software path to recover that lost capacity. For product teams evaluating cycle time improvements, it offers a lower-cost, lower-risk alternative to platform upgrades or mechanical redesign — with results measurable on the first arm.