Toward a digital twin of a robot workcell: standards and methods

Digital twins are poised to improve the engineering, operation, and management of manufacturing facilities. However, implementing digital twins has been a challenge primarily due to a lack of resources and the absence of standardized digital twin frameworks and methods. This paper describes creating a digital twin of a robot workcell using available standards, tools, and methods. The workcell comprises collaborative robot arms, a computer numeric control (CNC) machine tool, and a coordinate measuring machine (CMM). The ISO 23247 standard provides a guideline for building the digital twin. Data are collected from physical devices and the MTConnect standard provides a format for communicating the data between the physical equipment and their digital counterparts. The machine components in the workcell are represented as models in the virtual world. This research shows that the above standards and methods support building a digital twin of a robot workcell. The data collected and communicated can be used to improve workcell functions such as quality management and predictive maintenance.