Developing a SME Digital Twin by Exploiting Artificial Intelligence Techniques and Robotic Operating System Tool

Advanced robotics corresponds to one of Industry 4.0 concepts as much as artificial intelligence, digital twin or internet of things (IoT). These concepts are already used to improve the company’s global performance but required economic investment that are not necessarily possible for SMEs. Indeed, before investing in a tool by the SME, the company needs to be sure about the impact of the product on the company performance. Flexibility is used as a tool to increase the SME production manufacturing performance through the reduction of lead time, cost and quality. The objective is to develop an SME digital twin able to test and validate industry 4.0 concepts before their implementation in the company. A focus is made on the exploitation of artificial intelligence and robotic operating systems (ROS) tools to manage and evaluate human-robot interactions. A ROS-based platform has been developed as a module of the digital twin, enabling the optimization of movements for mobile robots and cobots to enhance flexibility in tasks within the company’s manufacturing system. This paper presents concepts and tools based on artificial intelligence techniques and ROS tools, to develop a digital twin used to increase SME performance.