Process Digital Twin in Naval Manufacturing 5.0: A Case Study

This article proposes a framework for the development of process digital twins (DTs) based on the definition of three levels of digital maturity in naval industry. The case study is a real pilot cell developed at the Innovation and Robotics Center of NAVANTIA—Ferrol shipyard, which includes technologies such as robotics, automated welding, computer vision, visual inspection, and autonomous vehicles for the manufacturing of minor pre-assembly components. At level 1, or connected digital twin, a simulation model is integrated with its physical counterpart to calculate process times using an IoT architecture instead of estimated ratios from the PLM. At level 2, or smart digital twin, artificial intelligent techniques are employed to optimize a cost function related to operation times, material sequencing, or the use of Zero-Defect Strategies. At level 3, or autonomous digital twin, a bidirectional real-time connection is established with the cell. The aim is acting on the activation or deactivation of material input optimization according to the presence of bottlenecks, visual inspection, or optimization of welding parameters.