Development of a Digital Twin for a Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) Additive Manufacturing Cell

This work focuses on developing and implementing a Digital Twin for an additive metal manufacturing cell that utilizes the laser metal deposition (LMD) technique with a KUKA robot and MELTIO deposition head. The Digital Twin (DT) serves as a highly accurate virtual representation of the physical system, enabling operation simulations, real-time monitoring, and data collection for analysis. The DT architecture is designed following the ISO-23247 standard, providing a structured and standardized framework for Digital Twin implementation. To achieve this, various cutting-edge software tools are employed, including Grasshopper within Rhinoceros 7 for programming, modeling, and simulation, KUKA.sim for precise operation monitoring, Node-RED and AWS IoT Core for efficient data processing and communication, and an AWS DynamoDB database for secure and organized storage of all collected data. This comprehensive integration of advanced technologies allows for valuable insights into system performance and establishes a solid foundation for informed decision-making in the field of additive metal manufacturing.