From Sensors to Digital Twins toward an Iterative Approach for Existing Manufacturing Systems

Digital twin technology is a highly valued asset in the manufacturing sector, with its unique capability to bridge the gap between the physical and virtual parts. The impact of the rapid increase in this technology is based on the collection of real-world data, its standardization, and its widespread deployment on an existing manufacturing system. This encompasses sensor values, PLC internal states, and IoT, as well as how the means of linking these data with their digital counterparts. It is challenging to implement digital twins on a large scale due to the heterogeneity of protocols and data structuring of subsystems. To facilitate the integration of the digital twin into existing manufacturing architectures, we propose in this paper a framework that enables the deployment of scalable digital twins from sensors to services of digital twins in an iterative manner.