Engineering Platform for the Efficient Design and Operation of CNC-Controlled Robots Reusing Digital Twins from Virtual Commissioning

This paper presents a novel engineering platform for the efficient design and operation of CNC-controlled robots by reusing digital twins from virtual commissioning. The approach of controlling industrial robots via CNC-controllers, rather than traditional robot controllers, offers several advantages, such as synchronization with machine tools and simplified automation processes. Additionally, it allows the construction of special-purpose robots using standard automation components. However, the CNC-controller usually neglects the robot’s dynamics, resulting in less advanced control or necessitating expertise across multiple domains to implement specific solutions. The proposed platform overcomes these challenges by incorporating dynamics models into digital twins, which are then utilized during both engineering and operation to enhance the performance of CNC-controlled robots through dynamics/model-based design and control methods. This is demonstrated through examples such as trajectory planning, feedforward control, and the parameterization of dynamic parameters, illustrating how the platform optimizes CNC-controlled robot performance while minimizing additional effort and know-how.