The virtual twin: controlling smart factories using a spatially-correct augmented reality representation

With the advent of digitalization in industrial settings, referred to as Industry 4.0, more and more machine data is being collected and analyzed during a machine's life cycle. The availability to leverage machine data allows the concept of the Digital Twin. The more data that is collected the more statistically relevant and reliable the digital representation. This data within the Digital Twin is usually hard to access and to consume by humans. Typically, there is just a web-based user interface or basic queries available to mine the data. Therefore, we propose the concept of a Virtual Twin, which is an interactive virtual representation (virtual 3D model) of a physical object. The benefit of a Virtual Twin is that machines and equipment are arranged in the same way and at the same position in relation to each other as their real-world counterparts. The virtual 3D representation functions as an intuitive gateway to the corresponding Digital Twin. In this paper, we present the concept and implementation of the Virtual Twin and discuss potential use cases as well as areas of application.