Industrial digitalization in the industry 4.0 era: Classification, reuse and authoring of digital models on Digital Twin platforms

TLDR

Digital Twins are real‑time digital models that enable self‑diagnosis, self‑optimization and self‑configuration, and while they are central to Industry 4.0, their adoption remains modest among small and medium‑sized enterprises. The DIGITbrain project aims to enable modular construction of Digital Twins by reusing core building blocks—models, algorithms and data—and this paper outlines how such digital models can be classified, reused and authored on Digital Twin platforms. The authors build Digital Twins by assembling reusable models, algorithms and data, and demonstrate their use through experimental analyses of three industrial cases: agricultural robot assembly, polymer injection molding, and laser‑cutting and sheet‑metal forming of aluminum. Providing these building blocks as a service on a Digital Twin platform lowers technical barriers for SMEs, as shown by the successful deployment of Digital Twins in the three experimental industrial cases.

Abstract

Digital Twins (DTs) are real-time digital models that allow for self-diagnosis, self-optimization and self-configuration without the need for human input or intervention. While DTs are a central aspect of the ongoing fourth industrial revolution (I4.0), this leap forward may be reserved for the established, large-cap companies since the adoption of digital technologies among Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) is still modest. The aim of the H2020 European Project ”DIGITbrain” is to support a modular construction of DTs by reusing their fundamental building blocks, i.e., the Models that describe the behavior of the DT, their associated Algorithms and the Data required for the evaluation. By offering these building blocks as a service via a DT Platform (a Digital Twin Environment), the technical barriers among SMEs to adopt these technologies are lowered. This paper describes how digital models can be classified, reused and authored on such DT Platforms. Through experimental analyses of three industrial cases, the paper exemplifies how DTs are employed in relation to product assembly of agricultural robots, polymer injection molding, as well as laser-cutting and sheet-metal forming of aluminum.