Virtual Modelling of 6 Degree of Freedom Robotic Arm towards Digital Twin

Low, Jian Ming (2024) Virtual Modelling of 6 Degree of Freedom Robotic Arm towards Digital Twin. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

Digital twin is one of the Industry 4.0 technologies that gained great attention from industries due to its ability to represent the real-time system with virtual models. However, the realization of digital twins for robotic systems is often hindered by the complexity of integration between the virtual models and the actual system, as well as the accuracy of virtual modelling in replicating the actual robotic system. This project focuses on the development and implementation of a Virtual Model and Communication Protocol toward the Digital Twin (DT) framework for 6 Degree of Freedom Robotic arms. This project aims to design the virtual model for a 6 DOF robotic arm and integrate the developed virtual model with the actual robot for two-way data flow. This project is broken down into three main components: the Physical Layer, the Digital Layer, and the Interaction Layer. The Physical Layer involves assessing the 6DOF robot’s condition and its capacity for data exchange with its virtual model, utilizing XArmAPI protocols. The Digital Layer includes accurate measurement, 3D modelling, and accuracy verification in the production of geometric, physical, behavioural, and rule models while the Interaction Layer performs data interchange between the Virtual robot in the 3D Experience platform and the Actual robot with XArm_API using a Visual Studio Python script. The performance of the proposed framework was tested through the motion control of the considered robot with the corresponding virtual model (and vice-versa) in a pick-and-place motion task. Joint angles of the considered robot and its corresponding virtual model were collected and compared. Results showed that the differences in joint angles between the virtual model and the actual robot, generated from the motion of the pickand- place task were insignificant, based on the statistical Student T-Test and Pearson Correlation Coefficient analysis, where the p-value is the range from 0.977 to 0.731 from joint 1 to joint 6. Besides, from the Student T-Test, the conclusion that can be drawn is there is a significant linear relationship between the two motions. This proves that the virtual model is successfully built and the communication protocol successfully sends the joint motion data from the virtual model to the actual model and vice-versa. In conclusion, the objectives of this project are successfully achieved which is to design a virtual model and a communication protocol and then evaluate the design. Although the project objective is achieved, few future works can be done to improve the framework. The communication protocol can be improved by utilising the FMU and TCP/IP to communicate the virtual robot with the actual robot. Not only that, a variable also can be added to the virtual robot to fully replace the control of the command tool of the actual robot.