RealTime Simulators for the Digital Factory Environment

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Real-Time Simulators for the Digital Factory
Environment

• George Hassapis
• Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
• chasapis_at_eng.auth.gr

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References

• U. Bracht, T. Masurat, The Digital Factory
  between vision and reality Computers in Industry
  56 (2005) 325333
• Wilhelm Dangelmaier, Matthias Fischer, Jurgen
  Gausemeier, Michael Grafe, Carsten Matysczok,
  Bengt Mueck, Virtual and augmented reality
  support for discrete manufacturing system
  simulation, Computers in Industry 56 (2005)
  371383
• Gunter Wohlke, Emmerich Schiller, Digital
  Planning Validation in automotive industry,
  Computers in Industry 56 (2005) 393405
• Mariella Consoni Florenzano Souza Marco Sacco
  Arthur José Vieira Porto, Virtual manufacturing
  as a way for the factory of the future, J
  Intelligent Manufacturing (2006) 17725735

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The Digital Factory

• The entire life cycle of products and production
  plants requires planning efforts from the very
  beginning
• Planning is always subject to error. Failure to
  recognize the errors in due time results in
  considerable problems during the implementation
  phase.

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The Digital Factory (continued)

• The objective of the digital factory is by the
  use of digital models
• - to secure products and processes during an
  early phase of development and
• - to accompany the evolution of products and
  production
• Networking the digital factory with internal and
  external logistics and business processes the
  overall view of the operation of the entire
  enterprise may be obtained.

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The Digital Factory (Continued)

• Through simulation of various scenarios,
  enterprises can dimension storage and
  distribution of products and derive new
  organizational structures.
• Therefore the digital Factory will be a
  comprehensive network of digital models, methods
  and tools, including simulation and 3D/VR
  visualization, which are integrated through
  continuous data management
• The goal is to achieve holistic planning,
  evaluation and continuous improvement of all
  significant processes and resources in connection
  with the manufacturing, storage and distribution
  of a product

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The Digital Factory (continued)

• All the elements within the production during
  planning should be modelled in such a way that
  the physical manufacturing of the product meets
  quality, time and cost goals.
• The models within the Digital Factory must
  document and visualize all the elements of the
  future factory as well as describe their
  interplay.

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The Digital Factory (continued)

• When the concept of the digital factory is
  applied, considerable reductions are expected in
• the implementation phase by 30
• start-up cost by 15
• in an increase of the resource utilization by 20
• The role of the scientific world is expected to
  be on the development of new or improved methods
  for modelling, visualization, simulation,
  evaluation of planning alternatives and for data
  and information management.

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The Digital Factory (continued)

• The vision of the digital factory could be all
  computer-aided tools necessary for the planning
  of new products and production plants as well as
  for the operation of the factories to be
  networked through a central database.
• Testing of the products should rely on
  simulations of the operation of the
  manufacturing facilities and not on the
  construction of physical pilot plants or
  prototyping facilities.
• If simulations are supported by efficient VR
  interfaces then high-end visualization of all
  situations at any time becomes feasible
• This allows interdisciplinary cooperation among
  various experts all the way from the product
  design to the inspection of the new or modified
  factory.

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The Digital Factory (continued)

• Thus, during the developmental phases the digital
  factory should function virtually in the same way
  as the real factory after implementation
• Furthermore, it can be coupled with the actual
  production process after the realization of the
  plans for monitoring, controlling and improving
  the process.

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The Digital Factory (continued) The vision of
the digital factory is depicted in the following
Figure
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The Digital factory (continued)

• VR-supported simulation is the key element in
  digital factory. This should run in real-time
• To satisfy this requirement parallel computation
  facilities and techniques would be required along
  with the VR environments

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The Digital Factory (continued)

• First attempt is to use modern clusters of
  multi-core processors with high speed
  interconnection network and link them with
  Virtual Reality Environments
• By parallelizing the computations of the
  simulation, a speed-up of these computations can
  be achieved allowing the animated factory
  operations to be seen as they appear in
  real-life.

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The Digital Factory (continued)

• As an example let us consider an assembly robot
  operation which is part of an overall
  manufacturing facility of a new car.
• In this operation we wish to monitor the cycle
  times taken to weld in duplicate one part over
  another by two robots operating in parallel as
  the icon in the next slide shows

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Example 1VR-supported simulation of robot
operations to determine cycle time
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Example 1 (continued)

• In the VR-supported real-time simulation the
  robot movements are taken place at the actual
  robot times.
• The possibility of having the two robots
  colliding can be seen happening if the design is
  wrong
• This is achieved by solving the kinematic
  equations of the robots within the time limits
  imposed by the inertia of each movement once a
  command is given to the robot to move from one
  point of the space to another.

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Example 2 Evaluation of the introduction of a
new high frequency welding process into an
existing manufacturing process

• This process can be realized in 10
  different versions
• The evaluation consists in
• testing the efficiency of each version based on
  the considered material-flow,
• determination of the times for most of the
  manipulation and clamping operations
• Testing if-then scenarios, such as what happens
  when the buffer inventory falls below a specified
  minimum,

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Example 2 (continued)Virtual prototype of the
high frequency welding process
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Example 3Predictive control of Fluid Catalytic
Cracking

• Usually 100 multiplications of matrices of size
  1000X1000 elements within a period of 0.5 -1
  minute
• In a dual-core, 2.3 Gbits PC will take around 10
  minutes to complete
• In a 10 node cluster with dual core processors
  and 10Mbps network takes less than 1minute.

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Example 3 (continued) Predictive control of
Fluid Catalytic Cracking

• In the process of FCC more than 10 loops of
  predictive control may be required for efficient
  operation of the unit.
• Through a multi screen control room two operators
  monitor and run the unit.
• A VR-based simulation of the control room can be
  used to test the correct operation of the
  predictive control algorithms and train the
  operators on the use of the control room
  facilities

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Example 3 (continued)A virtual Control Room can
be setup in a VR cave
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Simulator Interface

• What should the links be of a parallel computer
  simulator with the other components of a digital
  factory environment
• The first and most important is its interface
  with the VR- system
• The second link should be with the central
  database of the digital factory

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VR Interface The diagram below shows a possible
realization of the VR-simulator Interface
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SIMULATOR LINKS

• The Database links must be based on neutral
  formats

Step AP214 STEP AP203 UPR,SMX,VRML
Step AP214 UPR, VS-3D
VR-Simulator
CAD
Central Dadabase
Step AP214 STEP AP203 UPR,SMX,VRML
Step AP214 STEP AP203 UPR,SMX,VRML
Validation
CAP
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New Research Directives

• Need to develop a generic platform for a digital
  factory or Virtual Manufacturing planning
  environment
• Key element of this platform should be the
  VR-supported Real-time simulator running on
  dedicated clusters with high speed
  interconnection network
• The simulator should support different parallel
  computation models, to be elected on the basis of
  the application

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New Research Directives (continued)

• The other components of the platform should
  include
• Design and validation environment for specifying
  product concept (description and representation)
• Design and validation environment for designing
  the product (geometry, materials, tolerances)
• Design and validation environment for the
  manufacturing process of the product (Cell
  description, sequence of operations, inventory
  control, etc.)
• VR-supported real-time simulation environment for
  replacing the pilot production

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New Research Directives (continued)

• Crucial factor in the development of such a
  platform is the interfacing of the components
  with a central database and among them.
• Adoption of standards of neutral formats and
  development of conversion routines for existing
  and used tools in the considered phases of the
  digital factory planning cycle.

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• THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION