An Interoperable Digital Twin with the IEEE 1451 Standards

Area of Science:

• Manufacturing Engineering
• Computer Science
• Industrial Automation

Background:

• The digitalization of factory floors is accelerating with Industry 4.0 concepts.
• Digital Twins (DT) represent physical systems but face interoperability challenges due to diverse components and protocols.
• Effective communication layers are crucial for integrating sensors and actuators with their digital counterparts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address interoperability issues in Digital Twin development.
• To propose a communication layer enabling syntactic and semantic interoperability.
• To demonstrate a Digital Twin capable of monitoring and visualizing a prototype system.

Main Methods:

• Development of a Digital Twin architecture from physical to visualization layers.
• Focus on interoperability using IEEE 1451 and IEC 61499 standards for syntactic communication.
• Implementation of a semantic communication layer for enhanced data interpretation.

Main Results:

• Achieved syntactic interoperability between IEEE 1451 and IEC 61499.
• Established a semantic communication layer for transducer devices.
• Successfully developed a Digital Twin prototype demonstrating syntactic and semantic interoperability.

Conclusions:

• The proposed semantic communication layer enhances Digital Twin interoperability.
• This approach enables effective monitoring and visualization of manufacturing systems.
• The developed Digital Twin provides a foundation for more integrated and intelligent factory operations.