Cyber-Physical Systems and Digital Twins in Practice – A Real-Life Application Example

About ten years ago, what is now commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution started. Since it is often assumed that major technological transformations take about 20 years to complete, we are at most halfway through the process. And although a lot is happening in this area, there is still a lack of practical examples for implementation in many places. Especially those who are not actively doing research on the concepts themselves thus often find it difficult to transfer them into practice. In this paper, we therefore want to present and explore a concrete example for the application especially of the concepts around the digital twin and cyber-physical systems in the context of a real but manageable practical project. Content of this practical project is the semi-automated measurement of material samples with the help of a laser scanner and two robotic arms. Special attention is given to the aspect of using existing, non-networked components, so-called legacy products.