What is a digital twin?
The digital twin is the virtual counterpart of a real machine that is created during virtual commissioning and is brought to life with real commissioning. All data from the real machine is digitally available to the user in real time. This makes it much easier to monitor, adapt and expand the machine or system.
The digital twin will become increasingly important in development and research in the coming years. It is becoming clear that this is not a monolithic model of the data, but rather various aspects of digital functionalities, representations, interfaces and models. This leads to a sustainable increase in efficiency.
Why virtual commissioning with a digital twin?
Optimally executed virtual commissioning with a digital twin offers a number of advantages. The time and cost savings are particularly noteworthy. Programming a digital system simulation is certainly associated with a high financial outlay, but this is quickly amortized by the savings made during the subsequent real commissioning.
Once an industrial plant has been commissioned and assembled, it takes a lot of time and effort to process it. Virtual commissioning helps to avoid these costs in advance. However, if the first simulation models are already created during the design and planning phase, possible weak points and potential for optimization can be identified and processed at an early stage.
The digital twin in PLC programming
The virtual model of a machine created using the simulation software can be linked to the virtual or real control system. When the data is exchanged, the sensor data is written into the controller. The signals at the output are read and assigned to the objects on the surface. In this way, the PLC programmer can check the program for the controller almost completely for functionality without having to use the actual system in the company.
