First exchangeable digital twin boosts industrial automation
Nine European partners have demonstrated interoperable, exchangeable digital twins for industrial automation for the first time based on a new data standard.
Siemens, Bausch+Ströbel, Bosch Rexroth, CADENAS, Festo, HARTING, SICK, Phoenix Contact, and WAGO are using the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) format in with prototype systems to exchange digital twins.
The AAS standard is crucial for the interoperable and efficient exchange of the digital twin data to build more complex virtual models with suppliers and customers.
The demonstration at the Hannover Fair in Germany this week shows how the AAS standard can be implemented in practice. The companies have exchanged digital twin data built to the AAS standard and evaluated a specific application with a labelling machine from Bausch+Ströbel.
“There is no longer any need to modify, search for, and complete the data, so we can begin our value-creating activities directly,” says Erich Bauer, Vice President of Research & Development at Bausch+Ströbel. “With the asset administration shell standard, the data is also of higher quality because, for example, we no longer have to reformat them.”
The AAS standard is driven by the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) to be industry-neutral and independent of manufacturers, enabling all of the information and functionality of a given asset to be documented, described and, most importantly, shared.
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For Industry 4.0, it facilitates the digital representation, for example, of a product or a machine, based on a uniform data language and standard data access. This is crucial for the efficient exchange of digital twin data between companies where the use of proprietary formats dominates.
Instead the AAS standard allowed the component manufacturers and software developers involved enabled Bausch+Ströbel to create a digital twin of the machine faster and more efficiently.
For customers, this means speeding up and simplifying the engineering process as asset data becomes more open, more readily exchanged and can serve as the link between the physical and digital worlds.
Siemens supported the demonstration using its Xcelerator portfolio of software. Component manufacturers were able to provide their digital twin data as an AAS directly via Teamcenter software for product lifecycle management (PLM) using a prototype development.
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Through prototypical AAS import add-ins within the engineering tools NX Mechatronics Concept Designer, TIA Portal, and SIMIT, the generated component AAS could then quickly and easily be used for the engineering. Each participating component manufacturers provided a digital twin of their components, such as sensors, plug connectors, and cylinders, in the form of an Asset Administration Shell.
Based on the specific Bausch+Ströbel system, the partners then jointly evaluated the added value of the AAS.
The AAS standard is at https://industrialdigitaltwin.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/2023_IDTA_AAS-Guide-H
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