Industry 4.0 : A reference model for a digital twin of a collaborative manufacturing cell

Abstract: With the advance of the fourth industrial revolution, the manufacturing industry is increasingly changing. The intelligent networking of machines and the collection of real-time data opens up new possibilities for data-based decision making. One of those applications is the digital twin. Those are digital copies of physical objects that represent the behavior of their real-world counterparts. Therefore they consist of several models to describe this behavior. The use of digital twins for virtual commissioning has been proven to reduce real commissioning time as errors can be identified and fixed before they occur. Especially in the manufacturing industry virtual commissioning is used for expensive assets such as whole manufacturing lines. This thesis investigates how a three-dimensional model of a manufacturing cell can be connected to its real-world counterpart. The aim is to develop a reference model. A virtual commissioning model of a real manufacturing cell is created to evaluate the main components of the reference model. The outcome of this study is a theoretical reference model to connect a collaborative manufacturing cell with a digital twin. Through the connection, the three-dimensional simulation model acts as a video of the real cell. The reference model can serve as the base for further research such as remote troubleshooting or to improve existing models.