An industrial simulator utilizing a gaming platform

Simulation is a tool offering several advantages in the field of automated manufacturing systems, permitting their analysis and evaluation overcoming complexity, cost, scaling, risk, and timing issues. Gamification technologies may complement limitations of conventional engineering systems towards a more natural human way of working. A gaming platform is utilized for the purpose of building an industrial simulation. Its architecture is presented comprising virtual entities for devices, controllers and agents, as well as appropriate interfaces to the real world, thus addressing the classical hierarchical architecture of the manufacturing environment. Finally, the state of implementation of an industrial demonstrator based on this simulation architecture is presented and discussed.