Building A Digital Twin of AN Automated Robot Workcell

A digital twin of a manufacturing system can positively impact its performance with respect to productivity, energy consumption, product quality, and cost. However, leveraging available methods and tools to build a digital twin is a challenge for many manufacturers, especially small and medium-sized manufacturers. The result is that the uptake of digital twins has been more limited than anticipated. This paper describes a method of instantiating the ISO 23247 framework for building a digital twin. A case study comprising robot arms, a CNC machine tool, and a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) identifies the modeling environment for the digital twin. The MTConnect standard is implemented to collect data from a robot arm to update the digital twin. Integration of workcell equipment and their digital counterparts are described. This research will result in guidelines to build digital twins for manufacturing systems in addition to providing test and validation methodologies for digital twins.