Building Experimental Laboratory for Digital Twin in Service Oriented Architecture

Abstract

The concept of Digital Twins is still in an infant state of development. Digital Twins are often built as a tool to aid in better understanding of physical systems through simulation. They can be used to visualize information during operations and provide instructions during training or execution of procedures. The use of Digital Twins to test is appealing as it can be done quickly and safely. However, testing without inclusion of the physical system can lead to a reality gap. The reality gap can lead to high risks when applying concepts tested on digital Twins to the physical system directly. Sometimes interaction with the physical system is unfeasible. In this paper, we present an experimental laboratory that we built to provide a platform for the development of high quality Digital Twins through a feedback loop. The physical system is a Palfinger crane. Our replicate physical twin is a Universal collaborative industrial robot model UR16e due to its similar anatomy to the crane. The RoboDK simulation software was used to rapidly develop a digital twin of the UR16e. We demonstrate a solution to the interoperability problem in digital Twins using the monitoring adaptation loop from the Autonomic Adaptation System of the Arrowhead Framework.