Digital twin-based multi-level task rescheduling for robotic assembly line

Assembly is a critical step in the manufacturing process. Robotic assembly technology in automatic production lines has greatly improved the production efficiency. However, in assembly process, dynamic disturbances such as processing time change and advance delivery may occur, which cause the scheduling deviation. Traditional scheduling methods are not sufficient to meet the real-time and adaptive requirements in smart manufacturing. Digital twin (DT) has the characteristics of virtual-reality interaction and real-time mapping. In this paper, we propose a DT-based framework of task rescheduling for robotic assembly line (RAL) and its key methodologies, thus to realize the timely and dynamic adjustment of scheduling plan under uncertain interferences. First, a DT model of RAL task rescheduling composed of physical entity (PE), virtual entity (VE), and virtual-reality interaction mechanism is proposed. Then, a mathematical model is established. By analyzing the adaptive objective thresholds from the perspectives of event trigger and user demand trigger, a DT-driven multi-level (production unit level and line level) rescheduling strategy is proposed. Taking both the computing time and solution quality into consideration, the precedence graph is introduced to propose a rescheduling approach based on an improved discrete fireworks algorithm. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed model and approach are verified by task scheduling experiments of RAL.