An adaptable Digital Twin model for manufacturing

Abstract

In a smart manufacturing system, physical assets are often connected to their Digital Twins in the virtual world that composes a cyber-physical production system (CPPS). Digital Twin is synchronized with the physical asset. Digital Twin is therefore considered an enabling technology of smart manufacturing. In the process of developing Digital Twins, the Digital Twin model is of great significance. Many Digital Twin models have been proposed in the past decades, including geometry models, information models, and ontology models. However, there has not been an adaptable and generic Digital Twin model that can be used for various scenarios in a manufacturing system. This paper proposes an adaptable Digital Twin model based on the object-oriented concept. The proposed Digital Twin model can be applied to different situations using object-oriented concept features. Firstly, the base Digital Twin model is developed according to ISO 23247, including the essential attributes of a Digital Twin. The aggregation and composition mechanism of the proposed Digital Twin model is also described based on the object-oriented concept. After that, according to the categories of the physical assets on the shop floor, Digital Twin models of different physical assets are developed based on the base Digital Twin model, inheriting the features of the base Digital Twin model. In the end, a case study is carried out for verification on a machine tool in the Laboratory for Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing Systems (LISMS).