Digital Twins for Space Factory 4.0

Abstract

Aiming the rapid response of mega constellation of satellites to cover the increasing demand for Earth observation and communication, in-orbit manufacturing is a promising approach. Driven by the NewSpace, which is leading a paradigm change in the space industry, the project Space Factory 4.0 has been founded to establish new processes and technologies based on the Industrie 4.0 approaches for rapid satellite assembly on an in-orbit platform. One of its fundamental approaches and the main contribution of this paper is the Digital Twins. In the scope of a Space Factory 4.0, the Digital Twin is a holistic approach for supporting and controlling systems for in-orbit Assembly, Integration, and Test processes, as well as satellite operations, by establishing a bidirectional link to its physical counterpart. It is an essential approach to obtain a digital representation of the current state of the real product at any time, enabling the recognition of and reaction to disruptive parameters at an early stage. To model Digital Twins and to meet the specific requirements of a Space Factory 4.0, such as the capability of sending telecommands and processing telemetry data, an extension of Industrie 4.0 component, called Space Factory 4.0 component, is proposed. This paper discusses this concept, its implementation and the results obtained and concludes to discuss its benefits and potentials for the space industry.

Towards next generation digital twin in robotics: Trends, scopes, challenges, and future

“…The most frequent approaches in DT-space robotics were observed in the case of VTB implementations [23] , [24] , [25] . Other trends included DT- aided haptic telerobotic assembly of modular satellites, processing of such telemetry data [2] , [3] and spacecraft MRO [26] . Fig.…”

“…Several studies focused on the implementation of DT in “Space Factory 4.0”, an analogy of “Industry 4.0” to the space domain [2] , [3] . One study in [2] presented a haptic telerobotic system that employed DT to seamlessly assemble tiny modular satellites in space.…”

“…The suggested solution favors an HMI that provides direct manual control of robot manipulators via the DT environment contributing to a DT empowered “Space Factory 4.0”. Another study in [3] showed approaches for processing the telemetry data of the proposed DT-incorporated telerobotic system in [2] .…”

“…In this new era, where industry, automation and man-machine interaction go hand in hand, a slew of new synergistic fusions of preexisting and novel technologies have been observed to have experienced a staggering rise. Simultaneously, it has also led to the emergence of some new concepts such as Operator 4.0 [1] and Space Factory 4.0 [2] , [3] , where these technological amalgams are seemingly thriving. Apart from the industrial aspect, the research sectors are also being greatly benefited through the use of such technologies.…”

Parameter Selection for Digital Satellite Model Updating with Knowledge Graph

“…The latter enables mutual connections between digital twins of multiple spacecraft to accomplish satellite cluster cooperation. For in-orbit manufacturing, Martins and Anderl proposed a basic framework named Space Factory 4.0 that considers telemetry and telecommand data [9]. This framework enables seamless data exchange and connection between the digital twin and its physical counterpart so as to lead to a more accurate digital representation.…”