Digital twin experiments focusing virtualisation, connectivity and real-time monitoring

Industry 4.0 is re-shaping the manufacturing world, and amongst the several associated emerging methods and technologies, Digital Twin is becoming a popular approach both in industry and academia. However, the lack of knowledge about the characteristics, functionalities, best practices and benefits that it can provide, especially for small and medium enterprises, constraints its wider adoption. The use of real applications and demonstrators can contribute to exposing stakeholders to these new and innovative technologies and approaches, showing the applicability of Digital Twins. This paper presents several experiments in implementing Digital Twin for automation scenarios, considering different technologies and functionalities, namely in terms of virtualisation, connectivity and monitoring. Lessons learnt and challenges are also provided as a result of the experimental implementations.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope UIDB/05757/2020. The author Flávia Pires thanks the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal for the Ph.D. Grant SFRH/BD/143243/2019.