m-menne / virtual-festo-twin

AR remote control of an industrial plant using a digital twin.

Virtual Festo Twin

Overview

This project realizes the remote control of an industrial plant, the Festo Workstation, by using the Microsoft HoloLens. Sensor values can be read out and actuators controlled via an interactive 3D model of the Festo workstation, which is projected into the user’s field of vision and thus enables a visual presentation of the current state of the Festo workstation. Furthermore, the user can also be provided with assistance for maintaining and controlling the Festo workstation by an automatic error detection and visual assistance in the 3D model.

Developed by Caner Kazanci, Jan Knittel, Paul Knopp and Max Menne at the chair of Embedded Systems for Information Technology, Ruhr-University Bochum in coorperation with Avnet Silica and Microsoft.

Exhibitions

This project was exhibited and presented at the embedded world 2018 as well as the CDNLive 2018, among several other events. A short review of this project by Frank Schirrmeister (Cadence) can be found here.

Structure of the repository

The code of the project contained in this repository is organized in the following folders:

1. Hardware_Design contains the hardware design and configuration of the ZedBoard created with Vivado,
2. Hololens contains the augemented reality application including the 3D model of the Festo Workstation,
3. Microblaze contains the implementation of the communication protocols between MicroBlaze and I/O boards,
4. Zedboard contains the implementations for the data processing and the web interface.

Features

• Web interface to the sensors and actuators of the Festo Workstation
• Interactive 3D model of the Festo Workstation presenting the values of:
  • a pressure sensor
  • an ultrasonic level sensor
  • a temperature sensor
  • a flow rate sensor
• as well as controlling:
  • a pump
  • a pneumatic valve
  • a control valve
  • a heater
• Anomaly detection based on a control system
• Visual assistance within the 3D model to control the plant
• 2 different graphical web interfaces for controlling the Festo Workstation

Setup

The project is composed of the following four elements:

• Microsoft HoloLens (1st Generation)
• Router
• ZedBoard
• I/O boards:
  • Digital input/output: Infineon AN-EVAL 2x8-ISO1|811T and 2x8-ISO1H815G-1
  • Analog input/output: maxim integrated Petaluma and Alameda
• Festo MPS PA Compact Workstation

The following diagram provides a rough overview of the entire structure of the system and the connection between the different components:

3D model	Zedboard and I/O boards	Festo Workstation

Development

The following software was used to create this project:

• AR application:
  • Unity (Version 2017.1.1f1)
  • Blender (Version 2.79)
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Code (Version 1.19)
• Zedboard:
  • Vivado (Version 2017.1.0415.1)
  • Vmware Workstation (Version 14.0.0)
  • PetaLinux (Version 2015.2.1)