Digital Twin for a Multifunctional Technology of Flexible Assembly on a Mechatronics Line with Integrated Robotic Systems and Mobile Visual Sensor—Challenges towards Industry 5.0

Abstract

A digital twin for a multifunctional technology for flexible manufacturing on an assembly, disassembly, and repair mechatronics line (A/D/RML), assisted by a complex autonomous system (CAS), is presented in the paper. The hardware architecture consists of the A/D/RML and a six-workstation (WS) mechatronics line (ML) connected to a flexible cell (FC) and equipped with a six-degree of freedom (DOF) industrial robotic manipulator (IRM). The CAS has in its structure two driving wheels and one free wheel (2DW/1FW)-wheeled mobile robot (WMR) equipped with a 7-DOF robotic manipulator (RM). On the end effector of the RM, a mobile visual servoing system (eye-in-hand MVSS) is mounted. The multifunctionality is provided by the three actions, assembly, disassembly, and repair, while the flexibility is due to the assembly of different products. After disassembly or repair, CAS picks up the disassembled components and transports them to the appropriate storage depots for reuse. Disassembling or repairing starts after assembling, and the final assembled product fails the quality test. The virtual world that serves as the digital counterpart consists of tasks assignment, planning and synchronization of A/D/RML with integrated robotic systems, IRM, and CAS. Additionally, the virtual world includes hybrid modeling with synchronized hybrid Petri nets (SHPN), simulation of the SHPN models, modeling of the MVSS, and simulation of the trajectory-tracking sliding-mode control (TTSMC) of the CAS. The real world, as counterpart of the digital twin, consists of communication, synchronization, and control of A/D/RML and CAS. In addition, the real world includes control of the MVSS, the inverse kinematic control (IKC) of the RM and graphic user interface (GUI) for monitoring and real-time control of the whole system. The “Digital twin” approach has been designed to meet all the requirements and attributes of Industry 4.0 and beyond towards Industry 5.0, the target being a closer collaboration between the human operator and the production line.

A Digital Twin Platform Integrating Process Parameter Simulation Solution for Intelligent Manufacturing

“…Furthermore, they integrated with their DY the VR/AR technology. Similar work was reported by Minca et al [9], which also applied OPC UA for communication in between a physical assembly line controlled by the Siemens PLC system and its DT counterpart. The work of [6][7][8][9] provided a solution for communication issues with DT platforms which involves PLC control, yet they either introduced dedicated, chargeable, plug-ins (e.g., Game4Automation) or hardware components (since OPC UA requires additional hardware communication components and authority of dedicated protocol); thus, the solutions are not widely applicable and are also expensive.…”

A Novel Simulated Annealing-Based Hyper-Heuristic Algorithm for Stochastic Parallel Disassembly Line Balancing in Smart Remanufacturing

“…Indeed, various advanced sensing technologies emerged in recent years can be implemented in the proposed parallel disassembly lines and integrated into our proposed approach to further improve their intelligence and efficiency. Mobile visual sensor systems, for example, can be integrated into parallel disassembly lines for real-time monitoring, which enables the detection of anomalies and failures for dynamic planning and further optimisation of the parallel disassembly lines [ 57 ]. Moreover, autonomous robotic, automated guided vehicle (AGV), and smart sensor devices have significant potential advantages when combined with parallel disassembly lines.…”

A Bibliometric Analysis of Digital Twin in the Supply Chain

“…Sustainability is also a part of the digital twin research in the supply chain to reduce raw material consumption [154]. In this stage, research highlighting digital twin as an enabler of Industry 5.0 has started to emerge, as digital twin is a supporting technology for Industry 5.0 [155][156][157]. Digital twin as an enabler in Industry 5.0 consists of seven elements, namely, technologies, humans, management, organizations, scopes, tasks, and modelling, while the types of digital twin in the supply chain involve product, process, organization, supply chain, and network-ofnetworks [158].…”