Digital twins are rapidly establishing themselves as a necessary step in digital change also in the design of automated and robotic manufacturing systems. The digital twin serves as an interface between physical industrial products and digital worlds. This allows you to map the continuous availability of data throughout the lifecycle from product planning and development, production and commissioning to use and recycling. An important step towards this goal is to create digital twins of the components in order to create a database usable for the design of new production systems in a virtual environment. One of the possibilities of using the digital twins is testing and virtual commissioning of production systems. Instead of the classic CAD model, the digital twin replaces a detailed digital image of individual components, including their full functionality. The Digital Twin comprises the CAD model, kinematic behavior model a most important is the logical behavior model. Our goal is to create a digital twin component of the production system, integrate a CAD model, create a kinematic model and a logical behavior model. This digital twin will have signals assigned to it for logical behavior. The result is the verification and testing of the information exchange between the virtual control system and the virtual model, using the Software-in-the-Loop method and the Tecnomatix Process Simulate software environment on the digital twin side and the Siemens TIA Portal with PLC SIM Advanced on the controller side. The result of the knowledge is that the exchange of information is functional and usable for virtual commissioning.

The aim of the contribution is to create an event-controlled simulation of an automated production system using selected simulation software according to analyses and creation PLC control program compatible with human-machine control interface (HMI) visualization. The programmer can test the control program without the need for additional hardware on a virtual model of the machine. This method is called as a Virtual Commissioning method. The question is whether these new digital technologies are beneficial in the development process of new machines. The theoretical part of the contribution deals with the evaluation of the current state of knowledge in the field of virtual commissioning systems from the perspective of the Industry 4.0 concept and the use of principles taken from the technology of digital twins for analysing the possibilities of productive support of simulation, programming and visualization of control. For the Virtual Commissioning of the Quality-handling station from a flexible production system. It was chosen Tecnomatix Process simulating software for the developing of the Digital Twin of the station that is suitable for the connection of the logical behaviour inputs and outputs of the Digital Twin to the PLCSIM emulator. The main goal is to create a functional PLC program, so that in the second phase the process of virtual commissioning can be tested by the Software-the-Loop method. The preparation of the simulation model consists in a sample of the control station model of the production system, the process of creating kinematic bonds, behaviour model, creating control signals in the Tecnomatix Process Simulate program. Programming procedure and acquaintance with control means in the Simatic Manager program, selection of communication interface and creation of control visualization. In the final work, validation is performed and evaluation supports the objectives and the results confirmed the benefits of the Virtual Commissioning tool.

This paper focuses on virtual commissioning of a robotic manufacturing system, its theoretical background, and an analysis of its importance in the design of automated and robotic systems. Virtual commissioning allows the PLC control program to be tested and debugged on a created digital model of the machine, called a digital twin of the machine. Just this solution can simulate and optimize the automated system design itself without the need to have real hardware (PLC, automation elements, or the whole machine/equipment). Virtual commissioning offers an effective alternative to reduce the risks and effort of real commissioning of the machine. This makes it possible to reduce the time to market and increase flexibility, efficiency, and quality. Virtual commissioning in a single-control system is a simple solution; we can either use the Software-in-the-Loop method with emulated PLC control, simulated behavioural model, and co-simulation model or Hardware-in-the-Loop method with real controller. The problem appears when we have various types of controller, including an industrial robot controller. The paper deals with the theoretical background and partial outlines of solutions in the use of different types of the control system, if interconnections or emulators for different control systems are available. The recommended solution is to use a separate solution for the 3D simulation of the robotic system and an independent solution for the behavioural model, which will be tested in the future.