Digital twin design of a 5 degrees of freedom industrial robotic arm for engineering education purposes

Abstract

The main contribution of this paper is to transfer a Mitsubishi RV-2AJ MELFA type industrial robot with 5 degrees of freedom into a virtual space using photogrammetry. The mesh model of the robot was realised in Meshroom software while for the assembly model we used Sold Edge 3D designer software based on reverse engineering principles. The accuracy to the digital twin was tested by comparing the trajectory of the TCP with the physical robot. Moreover, forward kinematic calculations in MATLAB environment were used to validate the model on mathematical way. The digital twin has the opportunity to receive sensor data and coordinates from the physical robot and can be integrated into digital laboratories emphasizing and demonstrating industrial 4.0 technologies in modern engineering education.