Shop Floor Virtualization and Industry 4.0

This paper addresses one of the key components in today's industrialization approach: virtualization. The work describes the virtualization of a typical production process, the digital twin in the scope of Industry 4.0, involving different devices, such as robotic arms, conveyors, automatic warehouses and vision systems. It includes both legacy and recent equipment, with different characteristics and communication capabilities, ranging from RS232 serial communication to TCPIIP-based communication, or even I/O-based interaction for devices with no communication capabilities. The developed approach aims at industrial implementations, while allowing for educational purposes. For a standardized approach, the OPC UA protocol is used for high-level communication between the various systems. Several results are described showing the success of the methodology and application.