Digital Twins for Distributed Control Systems in IEC 61499
Date
2023-05-08
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Abstract
Digital twins are at the centre of smart manufacturing and production in Industry 4.0. Literature surrounding digital twins demonstrates them to be key in optimizing production systems, monitoring system performance, detecting and predicting faults, intervening in production operations if needed, and even designing new manufacturing systems. They achieve these feats by applying a high-fidelity model of a device built from the understood physics in combination with all available and applicable sensor data, and by establishing a bidirectional communication pathway that allows the digital twin to receive data and send signals. Whatever the goal of a specific digital twin, it typically achieves it by using its model to simulate the physical system in some form. While the features described here are common amongst nearly all digital twins, the concept becomes less clear once the literature is reviewed more thoroughly. Not only do the features of a digital twin vary with different authors, but the method of constructing them varies even further. This issue is noted in research on the topic and acts to bar the application of digital twins in a widespread manner. This thesis aims to resolve this issue for production systems managed through distributed control systems. An architecture for digital twins that makes use of a high level programming language, in this case MATLAB, in combination with IEC61499 function blocks is proposed. The architecture produces a twin capable of the key functions necessary for it to be useful in a production system, such as model construction and system monitoring and simulation, and produces a bi-directional communication pathway which allows it to interact with the device and the remaining control system. The digital twin architecture’s functionality is demonstrated and evaluated through a series of tests. Digital twins are a key element to establishing a distributed intelligent sensing and control system, that is a distributed control system which can self manage and operate intelligently and autonomously. This thesis explains how this may be achieved in the IEC61499 standard, and how the digital twin architecture produced here supports this objective.
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Keywords
Distributed Control System, Digital Twin, IEC 61499, Cyber Physical Production Systems
Citation
Lesage, J. L. V. (2023). Digital twins for distributed control systems in IEC 61499 (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.