Extending the Digital Shadow for Industrial Robotic Arms in a Mixed Reality Environment

Abstract: In recent years, the traditional manufacturing industry is challenged worldwide with the astounding growth and advancement so-called Industry 4.0. One of the multiple objectives pursued by the industry with this technological revolution is to achieve a new enhanced standard of safety. In addition, a solution against inaccurate offline robot programming needs to be tackled. The combination of a Digital Shadow (DS) of the robot with visualisation in Mixed Reality (MR) can help to increase safety and eventually, even make the design process faster. In this survey paper, a visualisation system in MR that allows the user to overlay digital tools into a UR10e Physical Robot (PR), thus permitting the PR to interact with digital work objects is proposed. To achieve the synchronisation between the digital and real assets, a DS of the robot has been developed. The integration of the Digital Models (DMs) of tools and work objects allows the user to work with the robot without load, opening the possibility of recreating and testing in real-time experimental industrial processes.