Executable digital twin for a flexible robotic link
摘要
Robotic manipulators have been conquered significant adoption over the years in the last decade. The robotic manipulators with flexible links receive more attention due to their advantages, including less energy consumption, higher operation speed, lower weight, and others. On the other hand, decreasing the mass of these manipulators can lead to challenging effects, such as less accuracy, complex dynamics, uncertainties, and large deflections caused by the flexibility of the links. In general, the total displacement of the link is defined by the sum of both effects, including those from the rigid displacement and those from the flexibility. While the rigid part can be defined by the use of encoders and simple equations, the estimating of flexibility is a challenging task. Since this deflection is time-varying, a mathematical model may not be an accurate way to estimate the flexibility in all scenarios. In this sense, Executable Digital Twins (EDTs) appear as an interesting alternative to exchange data from the physical and virtual representations and then update the system in real time. The experimental results reveal that the use of EDT can accurately estimate the flexible dynamics and also attenuate the undesired effects from the flexible links, including lower peaks, and more precise and faster convergence of the desired motion. Regarding the performance indices, an average attenuation of 38% is observed from both link configurations. Therefore, the proposed strategy allows us to conclude that the DT can be used to estimate in real time the system dynamics and update accordingly.