ABSTRACT
As the competition among manufacturing organizations increases, the Digital Twin (DT) technology promoted within the industry 4.0 paradigm can be a fundamental game changer for the development of more efficient smart production systems while preserving the safety of operations. This research contributes to the state of the art in such fields by addressing the problem of the conceptualization, design and development of DT of a logistic system for the shipbuilding industry, where material handling operations are planned and managed in a virtual shipyard space, exploiting the technology of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and Collaborative robots (COBOTS), in order to increase the safety and the efficiency of operations. The methodological approach involves the determination of the trajectories travelled by the transporter in the shipyard area, considering the specific mission tasks, the operational and safety issues, as well as the specific conditions of the shipyard area (obstacles, pathways, etc.). The results obtained in a preliminary six-month experimental campaign in real operating conditions validated the system developed and allowed to gather a relevant dataset of the utilization profile of the vehicles, thus allowing for further implementation of advanced data analytics for improving the performance of the system and including additional functions such as the management of the maintenance operations.
