Digital Twins Development of Automatic Storage and Retrieval Station in a Production Line and an Integrated Robotic Manipulator

Abstract

AbstractThe integrated digital twins are flourishing as core components of Industry 4.0. A digital twin is a virtual model that replicates the behavior of a real physical system. All aspects of a manufacturing process including but not limited to a product idea, design, performance evaluation, and commissioning can be optimized using digital twins. This paper presents the design of digital twins for the Automatic Storage and Retrieval Station of Festo MPS 500 system and the UR5 robotic manipulator. It will show the whole process of the digital twins’ implementation and will discuss its areas of application on the basis of the obtained virtual models. The virtual models were designed in Siemens NX 12 software. It is also shown that Open Platform Communications (OPC) protocol can be used to establish real-time communication between Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and the digital twins. Several simulations were conducted to validate the accuracy of the developed digital twins.KeywordsDigital twinProgrammable Logic ControllerIndustry 4.0Virtual commissioningSmart manufacturing