NUM Launches Digital Twin Technology for CNC Machines

NUM launched a digital twin technology that enables machine tool manufacturers to reduce their time to market dramatically, by using powerful Industry 4.0 simulation techniques. Digital twin technology is growing and is rapidly being accepted by the industry as one of the most cost-effective means of accelerating the development of products, processes, and services.

This technology can be used for automation products such as machine tools; a digital twin is a virtual model that uses simulation, real-time data acquisition/analysis, and machine learning techniques to allow full evaluation of a machine’s dynamic performance before constructing a physical prototype. It can also be employed for customer presentations, virtual commissioning, and operator training purposes.

The company offers two versions of the digital twin technology best suited for customers. Both versions are designed for use with NUM’s powerful, open-architecture Flexium+ CNC platform. One version uses a naked Flexium+ controller and resident virtualisation software running on the system’s industrial PC to simulate the twinned machine automation. The other version uses the actual Flexium+ controller that will eventually be incorporated in the machine, linked via EtherCAT to standalone PC running specialist high-speed hardware simulation software to represent the mechatronics of the twinned machine.

The company’s new digital twin technology provides machine tool manufacturers with a very powerful and cost-effective means of reducing their development costs and accelerating their time to market. The virtual controller version is especially useful for the early development stage of a project, before the CNC system has been finalized; while the real-time hardware simulation version has the advantage that all sequencing (PLC) and motion control (CNC) programs that are created during development can simply be transferred to the real machine as soon as it becomes available.

Image Source: NUM

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