Leveraging the Prototyping of Digital Shadows - A Smart Shelf Case Study

With the advent of the Internet of Things and Cyber Physical Systems in recent years, simulations has changing from models of limited lifetime to more dynamic approaches of constant use in which data flows between physical and virtual systems in real or near-real time. It has opening the doors to a concept called Digital Twin that seeks not only narrows the communication gap between these worlds but also allowing faster decision making in the real world based on data processed in its virtual counterpart. This paper proposes the prototype of a Digital Shadow (first step to achieve a Digital Twin) applied in a smart shelf, with the goal to capture its inventory level in nearreal time and produce useful data to be processed and analyzed in the virtual world. The paper have shown great results in tying together both worlds, specially by using popular hardware and software platforms such as Arduino and FlexSim, respectively.