A Digital Twin based Approach to Structural Mechanics: New Perspectives for Robotics in Forestry and Beyond

Dorit Kaufmann, Tobias Osterloh, Jürgen Rossmann

2024

Abstract

Computational simulations are nowadays crucial for the development of any complex mechatronic system. This holds especially true when it comes to robots acting in a highly dynamic environment, such as robots used as mobile machinery in forestry. The ever changing loads acting on these robots result from different weather conditions, ground stability, leverage forces of falling trees during cutting etc. Thus, the structural layout of the robot is rather sophisticated. Nevertheless, it is usually done once in the beginning of the design process and the dynamic loads can only be estimated, leading to huge safety margins. Regarding the ecological consequences every operation in forestry involves, it is of uttermost importance not only to do a neat structural design, but also to computationally analyse the mobile machinery directly in its actual environment. This work proposes a Digital Twin (DT) based approach to structural mechanics. Every feature of the environment (every tree, the soil etc.) as well as the robot itself can be represented by a DT. An existing Rigid Body Dynamics (RBD) is used to record all acting forces and momentums during an operation. They serve as input for a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) thus enabling a holistic simulation framework.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Kaufmann D., Osterloh T. and Rossmann J. (2024). A Digital Twin based Approach to Structural Mechanics: New Perspectives for Robotics in Forestry and Beyond. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications - Volume 1: SIMULTECH; ISBN 978-989-758-708-5, SciTePress, pages 274-280. DOI: 10.5220/0012755500003758

in Bibtex Style

@conference{simultech24,
author={Dorit Kaufmann and Tobias Osterloh and Jürgen Rossmann},
title={A Digital Twin based Approach to Structural Mechanics: New Perspectives for Robotics in Forestry and Beyond},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications - Volume 1: SIMULTECH},
year={2024},
pages={274-280},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012755500003758},
isbn={978-989-758-708-5},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications - Volume 1: SIMULTECH
TI - A Digital Twin based Approach to Structural Mechanics: New Perspectives for Robotics in Forestry and Beyond
SN - 978-989-758-708-5
AU - Kaufmann D.
AU - Osterloh T.
AU - Rossmann J.
PY - 2024
SP - 274
EP - 280
DO - 10.5220/0012755500003758
PB - SciTePress