Digital twin-based smart production management and control framework for the complex product assembly shop-floor

Digital twin technology is considered as a key technology to realize cyber-physical systems (CPS). However, due to the complexity of building a digital equivalent in virtual space to its physical counterpart, very little progress has been achieved in digital twin application, especially in the complex product assembly shop-floor. In this paper, we propose a framework of digital twin-based smart production management and control approach for complex product assembly shop-floors. Four core techniques embodied in the framework are illustrated in detail as follows: (1) real-time acquisition, organization, and management of the physical assembly shop-floor data, (2) construction of the assembly shop-floor digital twin, (3) digital twin and big data-driven prediction of the assembly shop-floor, and (4) digital twin-based assembly shop-floor production management and control service. To elaborate how to apply the proposed approach to reality, we present detailed implementation process of the proposed digital twin-based smart production management and control approach in a satellite assembly shop-floor scenario. Meanwhile, the future work to completely fulfill digital twin-based smart production management and control concept for complex product assembly shop-floors are discussed.