A 5M Synchronization Mechanism for Digital Twin Shop-Floor

In recent years, as a promising way to realize digital transformation, digital twin shop-floor (DTS) plays an important role in smart manufacturing. The core feature of DTS is the synchronization. How to implement and maintain the synchronization is critical for DTS. However, there is still a lack of a common definition for synchronization in DTS. Besides, a systematic synchronization mechanism for DTS is strongly needed. This paper first summarizes the definition and requirements of synchronization in DTS, to clarify the understanding of synchronization in DTS. Then, a 5M synchronization mechanism for DTS is proposed, where 5M refers to multi-system data, multi-fidelity model, multi-resource state, multi-level state, and multi-stage operation. As a bottom-up synchronization mechanism, 5M synchronization mechanism for DTS has the potential to support DTS to achieve and maintain physical-virtual state synchronization, and to realize operation synchronization of DTS. The implementation methods of 5M synchronization mechanism for DTS are also introduced. Finally, the proposed synchronization mechanism is validated in a digital twin satellite assembly shop-floor, which proves the effectiveness and feasibility of the mechanism.