Virtual commissioning of a mechatronic plant for insulating material processing: A company application towards Digital Twin

In the era of digitalization, the practice to represent physical entities in the virtual world from a visual but also modelling point of view constitutes a significant enrichment for the related scientific research. Among leading technologies, virtual commissioning offers the chance to test, verify and validate the control system of a machine or, more generally, of a mechatronic system before the real start-up. Renowned benefits of virtual commissioning are the elimination of errors in a early design phase, as well as the risk reduction on the real start-up and the possibility to test real-case scenarios without any cost and in short time. Based on the development of the Digital Model of the machine or system in exam, virtual commissioning is hence often associated to the creation of Digital Twins, too. This work explores potentialities and limitations in the evolution of a virtually commissioned mechatronic plant into a Digital Twin. A physics-based 3D simulation software has been utilized for the creation of the kinematic model of the plant in exam. Outcomes of the study are twofold: the model is exploited to provide an example of a successful application of virtual commissioning; considerations regarding the evolution of the model into a complete Digital Twin are also drawn.