Digital Twins: Assisting and Supporting Cooperation in Human-Robot Teams

To create an intuitive access to the robotic system at hand, we propose to use its Digital Twin (DT)—a virtual copy of the used robot with all necessary details of the mechatronic system, its construction, function, use and application. To do so, these DTs are embedded into a Virtual Testbed (VTB)—a software framework for cross-system, -discipline, and -application development on a system level—to gain insight into the complex system by having a bidirectional online data stream and interaction between human, DT, and Real Twin (RT). Intuitive user interfaces, the DT, and hardware interfaces are the requirements for this and can be used to fuse reality and virtuality to develop, monitor, and control the robotic system through the DT. Such DTs can then be used in various applications, here focusing on mobile robots for catastrophic scenarios where an effective coupling of human and robot skills is inevitable for a successful mission.

I. Introduction

Manufacturers worldwide are building sensors and communications into their devices to collect online real-time data. The most advanced are feeding this data into so-called “Digital Twins” (DTs), creating feedback loops between in-use devices and the simulation tools used to create them. This idea of using the already implemented virtual footprint of the system not only during the development but also in production of the real system shows great potential.