Digital Twin

Create digital product representations of products (Digital Thread), assets, and systems (Digital Twin) suitable for smart additive manufacturing.

Challenges

  • Implementing performance improvement measures on the manufacturing assets without disrupting the ongoing production process.
  • Lack of common two-way information flow channel i.e. IoT applications are currently solely limited to condition and performance monitoring purposes and not on implementing feedback measures in real-time.
  • Lack of flexibility in experimentation and better visualization of the information which are gathered from the assets
 Research Opportunities

  • Methods of increasing the existing system efficiency and Optimizing the resource consumption and re-use.
  • Improving product design and engineering change execution.
  • Utilizing digital record of serialized changes in configurations of machines or process parameters and their corresponding outcome in gaining a better understanding of cause and effects in a manufacturing environment
  • Ways of speeding up real-time asset data gathering, analytics, and change implementation in an ongoing process
  • Improving the simulations to mimic the actual environment and asset with a high level of accuracy
Objectives

  • Getting the real-time critical data on the manufacturing assets.
  • Applying analytics on the incoming streaming data from the assets.
  • Creating a digital replica of the asset and its’ environment which matches the actual asset and its’ work environment with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
  • Establishing a two-way information flow between the physical assets and their digital counterparts.
  • Implementing analytics-based performance improvement or corrective measures on the digital twin and observing its’ outcome in the simulation environment.
  • Sending the desirable parameter changes directly from the digital twin to the actual physical environment based on the outcomes in the simulation environment.
 Equipment / Software

  • Cloud compute subscription
  • Computer Workstations
  • DELMIA  Digital Manufacturing Software
  • Discrete event simulation software
  • Agent-based simulation software
  • System dynamics simulation software
  • Manufacturing Process simulations Software
Collaborators: EDS Technologies, Amazon Web servers, Anylogic

Create augmented digital to physical spaces (AR/VR) to test early digital prototypes

Challenges

  • INSUFFICIENT DATA: There is a low level of digitalization in the companies and thus enough data inadequate quality is missing and cannot be collected due to insufficient networks.
  • SECURITY ISSUES: Privacy & Security pose significant challenges. Due to inconsistencies in augmented reality programming, oversight, and negligence, there is a legitimate chance of getting into trouble without meaning to do so.
  • LACK OF STANDARDS: The technology is too new, and it is still coming to its own both in hardware and software terms. Without standards, every augmented reality-related project is a thing of its own barely compatible with the others. That complicates the process of unifying solutions to the greater whole which makes the overall development of the technology much slower than it could have been if everyone had been on the same page.
  • LACK OF COMFORT AND ROBUSTNESS: The initial hardware was originally developed for gaming entertainment and consumer applications and didn’t have the robustness, reliability, and resilience necessary for industrial manufacturing applications. It will also need to fit ergonomically for longer time periods, most hardware platforms provide some challenges in comfort during long-wear cycles.
  • STANDARDIZED INTERFACES: The software should also be easily updated through standardized interfaces with integration into ancillary industrial software systems, like computer-aided design, product lifecycle management, and ERP.
 Research Opportunities

  • Development of efficient algorithms to solve factory layout planning problems.
  • Design of more robust, reliable, and resilient hardware necessary for industrial manufacturing applications.
  • Development standards for AR, VR applications in manufacturing.
Objectives

  • To create a holistic platform to develop and test AR, VR solutions in manufacturing.
  • To develop a factory layout planning system.
  • To disseminate the new trends and applications of AR, VR in manufacturing.
 Equipment / Software

  • Workstation running Unity
  • Commercial AR/VR Hardware platform
  • Cameras
Collaborators: Trimble Inc, MetARVRse