Defining a Digital Twin-based Cyber-Physical Production System for autonomous manufacturing in smart shop floors

Smart manufacturing is the core idea of the fourth industrial evolution. For a smart manufacturing shop floor, real-time monitoring, simulation and prediction of manufacturing operations are vital to improve the production efficiency and flexibility. In this paper, the Cyber-Physical System (CPS) and Digital Twin technologies are introduced to build the interconnection and interoperability of a physical shop floor and corresponding cybershop floor. A Digital Twin-based Cyber-Physical Production System (DT-CPPS) is further established, and the configuring mechanism, operating mechanism and real-time data-driven operations control of DT-CPPS are discussed in detail. It is expected that DT-CPPS will provide the basis for shop floors to march towards smart manufacturing.