The project set out to construct a proof of concept for surface deformation in the Unity Engine using available assets and tools compatible with the Unity Engine, and via the proof of concept investigate which factors in a mesh deformation simulation that affects performance in terms of frames per second, memory usage and usability the most. This while looking into suitable data structures in the Unity Engine for handling expected data in a physics simulation of a surface deformation, such that of mining or scraping a cave wall. The project aims to answer these questions via testing and trail and error, performing tests while recording data which is plotted and discussed. To save time and start testing faster the usage of a premium assets called Digger Pro is used, allowing for quick set up of mesh manipulation inf both editor and play mode. Testing shows that one of the major factor for performance degradation is mesh resolu-tion, as it directly contributes to an increase in data points that needs to be kept track of and calculated. The Unity Engine and Digger PRO man-ages fairly well to stay above the targeted 30 frames per second limit even with medium level settings for meshes, all while maintaining acceptable memory usage levels. All this ties into the idea of an increased usage of digital twins in many different scenarios, and therefore the scientific community’s view on digital twins main challenges are summarized and discussed, hoping to shed further light on the current status of digital twin technology.

Humans are social by nature, and the physical distancing due to COVID has converted many of our daily interactions into virtual ones. Among the negative consequences of this, we find the lack of an element that is essential to humans' well-being, which is the physical touch. With more interactions shifting towards the digital world of the metaverse, we want to provide individuals with the means to include the physical touch in their interactions. We explore the Digital Twin technology's prospect to support in reducing the impact of this on humans. We provide a definition of the concept of Robo Twin and explain its role in mediating human interactions. Besides, we survey research works related to Digital Twin's physical representation with a focus on under-actuated Digital Twin's robotic arms. In this thesis, we first provide findings from the literature, to support researchers' decisions in the adoption and use of designs and implementations of Digital Twin's robotic arms, and to inform future research on current challenges and gaps in existing research works. Subsequently, we design and implement two right-handed under-actuated Digital Twin's robotic arms to mediate the physical interaction between two individuals by allowing them to perform a handshake while they are physically distanced. This experiment served as a proof of concept for our proposed idea of Robo Twin. The findings are very promising as our evaluation shows that the participants are highly interested in using our system to make a handshake with their loved ones when they are physically separated. With this Robo Twin Arm system, we also find a correlation between the handshake characteristics and gender and/or personality traits of the participants from the quantitative handshake data collected during the experiment. Moreover, it is a step towards the design and development of Digital Twin's under-actuated robotic arms and ways to enhance the overall user experience with such a system.

The goal of this work was to advance digital twins of wire-arc directed energy deposition (arc-DED) through process control with a multi-modal sensor array. Digital twins allow for synchronization, context, and visualization of in situ data. Additionally digital twins allow for bi-directional communication between the virtual and physical system, allowing for process control.This work implemented feedback control of the contact tip to work piece distance (CTWD), established a standard method to create modular unified robot description format (URDF) of the arc-DED system, and produced a complex component while collecting multi-modal data within the digital twin for robotic additive welding (DRAW) powered by Robot Operating System 2 (ROS2). This work also developed a robust pre- and post-processing framework in Python for three-dimensional FE thermal models of arc-DED. The framework looked at the effects of processing parameters and model convergence, through a full factorial design of experiments. Controlling CTWD is critical for wire-arc DED, and this work implemented a novel method of feedback control that can measure the weld bead height in situ. It is imperative for digital twins to have a comprehensive and accurate virtual representation. The standard method to create a URDF for arc-DED outlined in this work includes the entire robotic welding cell, all robotic axes, and sensors in an accurate, and modular framework. Following this development a large complex geometry (42.78 lb) using arc-DED, and DRAW reliably captured approximately 200 Gb of multi-modal data over the twenty-two hours of manufacturing time. This demonstrated the ability to produce a forty-two-pound complex component, four times larger than the next largest component produced on this system prior. Finally, this demonstrated the reliability of utilizing ROS 2 for multi-modal data capture and process control.

Der in diesem Projekt erstellte digitale Zwilling eines 6-Achs-Roboters [1] soll zukünftig als Basis für Forschungsprojekte, insbesondere im Bereich maschinelles Lernen, der Erklärbarkeit von KI als auch des Einsatzes von innovativen Mensch-Technik-Interaktionen dienen. Dabei soll auch die Tauglichkeit von Unity als Plattform zur ganzheitlichen Umsetzung von digitalen Zwillingen ergründet werden. Dabei soll ein physikalisch repräsentatives Modell des realen Zwillings erstellt, und Kommunikation zwischen den Zwillingen realisiert werden. Motivation dafür ist, dass Unity alle nötigen Werkzeuge mitbringt um eine 3D-Visualisierung des Roboters, und der Umgebung zu erstellen, und über verknüpfte C#-Skripte auch Mittel zur Integrierung komplexer Programme liefert. Zu Simulationszwecken soll dem digitalen Zwilling eine selbstständige Steuerung verliehen werden. Dabei soll der Roboter anders als bei vielen existierenden Anwendung nicht nur durch simple Verschiebung der Bauteile anhand von simplen Bewegungsgleichungen, sondern durch Motorkräfte in seinen Gelenken angetrieben werden. Dazu wird die in Unity enthaltene Physik-Engine ohne Zusatzmodule verwendet. Außerdem soll der digitale Zwilling in der Lage sein durch Kommunikation mit dem realen Zwilling dessen Bewegungen zu verfolgen.

Emulation is a technology, historically mostly used for virtual commissioning of automated industrial systems, and operator training. Trends show that new areas for deployment are being investigated. One way to broaden the scope of emulation technology is to increase emulation detail level. The University of Skövde conduct research within emulation technology, and are developing a higher detail level emulation platform performing  on component level. For transparent and systematic development of component models on this level, an open, extensible, and flexible data model for emulation models of industrial components is wanted. This thesis is contributing to this endeavour by developing a first draft of such a data model. A demonstration is also conducted by implementing a few components into the developing emulation environment, using XML as file format. An iterative "design and creation" methodology was used to develop and implement an object oriented data model. A selected set of industrial components were used to develop and demonstrate the data model, and the final result is visually represented as a class diagram together with explanatory documentation. Using the methodology and data modelling strategy used in this thesis, systematic and transparent development of emulation models on component level is possible in an extensible and flexible manner. / Emulering är en teknologi som historiskt mestadels använts vid virtuel idrifttagning av industriella automatiserade system samt vid operatörsträning. Trender visar att nya användningsområden utforskas. Ett sätt att vidga användningsområdet för emulering är att öka dess detaljnivå. Högskolan i Skövde utför forskning inom emulering och utvecklar en emuleringsplattform med utökad detaljnivå, även kallad komponentnivån. För att kunna arbeta systematiskt med utvecklandet av emuleringsmodeller för denna nivå önskas en öppen, skalbar, och flexibel datamodell för emuleringsmodeller. Detta examensarbete bidrar till detta genom att utveckla ett första utkast av en sådan data modell. Datamodellen demonstreras genom implementation inom den utvecklandes emuleringsmiljön, med hjälp av filformatet XML. En iterativ "design and creation" metodologi användes för att utveckla och implementera datamodellen. Ett set av industriella komponenter användes i utvecklingen och implementationen av datamodellen. Projektets resultat presenteras som ett klassdiagram tillsammans med förklarande dokumentation. Används projektes metodologi och datamodellerings-strategi kan man med fördel arbeta transparant och systematiskt med utveckling av emuleringsmodeller för anginven nivå. / TWIN

The idiom by Thomas Fuller fantasizes the fact that seeing is believing, but the feeling is the truth. This ideology has fired the vision and innovation of the Mulsemedia, multiple-sensorial media, and Internet of Skills (IoS) which enable the exchange of control, skills, and expertise anytime/everywhere across the Internet. With the emergence of the new generation of mobile network (5G), Tactile Internet, as well as the deployment of Industry 4.0 and Health 4.0, multimedia systems are moving towards immersed haptic enabled human-machine interaction systems such as the Digital Twin (DT). Specifically, Industry 4.0 will be using DT and robots on a large scale. This will increase human-machine and interaction to a great extent. There will be multimodal communications used to interact with digital twins and robots, specially haptics. Hence, tactile internet will replace the conventional internet today. In fact, a DT system can also be extended in Health 4.0 domain to act as a COVID-19 early warning system. Tracking a person’s temperature and other symptom data in real-time can signal if as well as when it’s time to see a doctor or take a COVID test. Link to a COVID tracing app, the digital twin might help get more information about the virus relative to the person itself. Since there are currently no well-recognized models to evaluate the performance of these systems, to address this research lacuna, we proposed a Quality-of-Experience (QoE) model for DT systems containing multi-levels of subjective, objective, and physiopsychological influencing factors. The model is itemized through a fully detailed taxonomy that deduces the perceived user’s emotional and physical states during and after consuming spatial, temporal, proximal, and abstracted multi-modality media between humans and machines. Further, the taxonomy was modelled using the best practice of machine learning methods to show how QoE for digital twin applications can be inferred and predicted from interactions and biosignals in this class of applications. Furthermore, the taxonomy was applied to two use cases. The first one addresses the objective quality optimization for transmission in a large scale immersed haptic virtual reality over the Internet while the second one aims to objectively infer an important DT QoE physiological aspect i.e, fatigue.

The master's thesis deals with a robotic palletizing controlled by PLC. The first part provides examples of palletizing machines. The second part shows how ABB robot is controlled by B&R Automation PLC. The third part introduces selected approaches for automated pallet pattern generation. The fourth part designs library that allows pallet patterns to be generated using B&R Automation PLC. Fifth part covers creation of virtual palleziting cell, which is used to test library for automated pallet pattern generation.

The goal of my master‘s thesis is to create a digital twin of a testbed Barman. The Barman is a school model of autonomous mixed drinks production line that demonstrates the principles of Industry 4.0. In the theoretical part of the thesis, the choice of a suitable tool for virtualization is discussed. The Tecnomatix Process Simulate and the Mechatronic Concept Designer module integrated in the NX platform is compared. The practical part of the work is divided into two phases. The first phase was about looking for a way to integrate the robotic SCARA manipulator. The second phase was focused on the virtualization of the cell Shaker in the latter of the tools mentioned before. This work is designed as a guide for creating and verifying the concept of a digital twin.

The diploma thesis is focused on an optical method for 3D scanning. There is selected photogrammetry for creating 3D models. In the practical part, a mechanism for automatic photo capture is designed and manufactured and 3D printed with using a digital camera, Arduino microcontroller and stepper motors. There are proposed two methods of capturing photographs with which digital twins of reference objects are created. The result of the work is a functional 3D scanner. The next are evaluated used methods as well as the production costs and the time required by the operator when creating a digital copy of the object is listed.

The Master’s thesis deals with virtual commissioning of the CNC machine tool changer. First deals with current state of knowledge with a systematic analysis of virtual commissioning. The 3D model is created by physical properties, sensors, actuators and control signals. In the last part of this thesis, a PLC program and visualization is created. The programs needed to create a virtual commissioning are jsou NX 12.0 - Mechatronic concept designer, SIMIT Simulation Platform V10.0 a TwinCAT 3.