An Aggregated Digital Twin Solution for Human-Robot Collaboration in Industry 4.0 Environments

Abstract

The digital twin is a powerful concept and is seen as a key enabler for realizing the full potential of Cyber-Physical Production Systems within Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 will strive to address various production challenges among which is mass customization, where flexibility in manufacturing processes will be critical. Human-robot collaboration – especially through the use of collaborative robots – will be key in achieving the required flexibility, while maintaining high production throughput and quality. This paper proposes an aggregated digital twin solution for a collaborative work cell which employs a collaborative robot and human workers. The architecture provides mechanisms to encapsulate and aggregate data and functionality in a manner that reflects reality, thereby enabling the intelligent, adaptive control of a collaborative robot.KeywordsDigital twinCollaborative robotHuman-robot collaborationIndustry 4.0Cyber-Physical Production System