Digital Twin Development for Serial Manipulators: Data Driven Optimized Planning and Sequencing of Tasks
equipment of gearbox production, such as
shaft fabrication CNC machines (NTX1000
and NLX2500), the gearbox assembly line
and the warehouse. In the data aggregation
system, hardware and software—for
example, gateway server, database server,
data acquisition (DAQ), data ingestion, data
storage and edge analytic systems—are
included. The outputs of DAQ and edge
analytic software are integrated with the
IIoT software platform for creating IoT
applications at manufacturing sites. Each
work station has an operator running MES to
perform the work order arranged by the
scheduling software. MES is configured by
the station owners according to their
respective standard operation procedures
(SOP). The graphical user interface (GUI) of
MES beside each station allows an operator
to manage the work orders derived from the
scheduling software. All required raw
materials, fabricated shafts and completed
gearboxes are located in the warehouse, and
AGV is utilized to transport those materials
to and from the warehouse via the docking
station based on the operation requests
through an IoT application. The inventory
IIC Journal of Innovation
updates are directly linked to the ERP system
from the warehouse. The data from sensors,
actuators and machines of all stations on the
shop floor are acquired with DAQ systems,
and some data are transformed into useful
data or information through edge analytic
algorithms.
All those connections and integrations
enable delivery of gearbox orders from
customers more efficiently and effectively.
The implementations of digital twin systems
for the complex applications are not
achievable and rational without the
systematic data model, connection,
communication and integration. Only with
those capabilities, it is feasible that a
customized gearbox sub-assembly order can
be processed and delivered in relatively
short time with minimum setup requirement
using DT technology. In the next section, the
authors will demonstrate how a customized
order of gearbox sub-assemblies is handled
and operated efficiently using a DT model
with minimum interruption on the existing
whole gearbox production workflow.
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