Digital Twin Robotic Control Under Real-Time Timing Constraints
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Real-time software control systems for physical machines face challenges in maintaining tight timing constraints while allowing for flexible and efficient custom control actions and reactions, often requiring specialized closed software modules that are difficult to develop and maintain.
Innovation Solution
A real-time robotic control framework utilizing a digital twin model that stores digital twin variables representing the operating environment, enabling users to define custom actions and reactions with high-level programming and reusable variable names, bridging communication between multiple systems to maintain timing constraints.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If closed software modules are used for highly-specialized tasks, then timing constraints are met, but system adaptability and ease of defining custom actions deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system is divided into distinct layers: a real-time control layer that handles timing-critical operations and an application layer that handles custom action definitions. This segmentation allows each layer to operate independently with appropriate flexibility, resolving the contradiction between timing reliability and adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
A digital twin model serves as an intermediary between the physical robot system and the application layer. It provides a virtual representation that can be manipulated freely in the application layer without affecting the real-time performance of the physical system, enabling custom actions to be defined and tested before deployment.
2Reliability
If closed software modules are used for highly-specialized tasks, then timing constraints are met, but code complexity and development time increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of directly programming complex control logic in the real-time system, developers work with simplified copies (digital twins) in the application layer. These digital twins mirror the physical system's behavior but allow for easier experimentation and development, reducing code complexity while maintaining timing reliability through the layered architecture.
3Measurement precision
If comprehensive environment modeling is implemented, then robot reaction accuracy improves, but computational load and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The digital twin model pre-processes and structures environment data in advance, organizing it into meaningful representations before real-time control is needed. This preliminary action reduces the computational burden during critical real-time operations, allowing accurate environment modeling without excessive processing time during execution.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for performing custom real-time control using a digital twin model. One of the methods include receiving a definition of a custom real-time action to be performed in real time by the real-time robotic control system to control a robot; and executing the custom real-time action according to the definition at each tick of a real-time control cycle to effectuate real-time operation of the robot, including: obtaining, by a real-time control process, values of one or more digital twin variables injected from the digital twin model into memory accessible by the real-time control process, computing updated real-time command information according to the definition of the custom real-time action and the values of the one or more digital twin variables injected from the digital twin model, and controlling the robot using the computed real-time command information.