Virtual Commissioning of an industrialwood cutter machine : A software in the loop simulation

• Main Author: Edgar Alexander, Montero Vera
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Luleå tekniska universitet, Institutionen för system- och rymdteknik 2020
• Subjects: Virtual commissioning; PLCSIM advanced; digital twin; mechatronics concept designer; SIMIT; TIA Portal; PLC; HMI; software in the loop.; Robotics; Robotteknik och automation; Control Engineering; Reglerteknik
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-77401

The methods used today for the commissioning and validation of industrial machines requires theconstruction of physical prototypes. Those prototypes help the engineers to e.g. validate if theprogram code meant to control a machine works as intended. In recent years the development ofnew techniques for the commissioning and validation of industrial machines has changed rapidlythanks to the development of new software. The method used in this thesis is called simulationin the loop. Another method that can be benecial to use is hardware in the loop. Using thosemethods for the commissioning of a machine is called virtual commissioning. The simulation inthe loop method is used to simulate both the machine and the control system that operate thatmachine. This is called a digital twin, a virtual copy of the physical hardware and its control systemthat can be used without the need for a real prototype to be available.The software used in this thesis comes all from the company Siemens and those are TIA Portal,Mechatronics Concept Designer, SIMIT and PLCSim Advanced. By using those programs it waspossible to build a digital twin with rigid body dynamics and its control system of the industrialmodel that was given by the company Renholmen AB. This model contained all the necessarycomponents needed for a virtual commissioning project to be done without the need to be at thefactory oor.The results showed that it was possible to achieve a real time simulation, allowing the possibilityto trim the controller parameters without the need of a physical prototype. Design errors were alsofound thanks to the results of the simulation.This new technique has shown to be a useful tool due to most of the work could be done on a digitalmodel of the machine. Simulations can reduce the time to market for industrial machines and alsohelp engineers to validate and optimize the product at an early stage. This tool that can be usedto validate industrial machines before they are created.