PostDoc Project
Title:
5G based digital twin architecture for process supervision and control
Dates:
2023/12/07 - 2024/10/31
Student:
Supervisor(s):
Description:
This Post doctorate research work will be carried out as part of a 3-year Franco-German ministerial project aimed at supporting the development of
innovative solutions for 5G private networks in industry.
The common policy objective of France and Germany is to foster European sovereignty in private 5G networks to increase productivity and contribute to
the implementation and use of flexible and sustainable solutions in industry. The project partners are CRAN with major French railway company, Major
TelCo company and German Research Center.
The digital transformation of the industry can rely on digital twins to improve production costs through optimized supervision and quality control
processes. Technical centers in the railways industry are truly representative as overseeing both standard maintenance (preparation of trains between two
travels) and full renewal of trains at their half-life, so they are under huge constraints in terms of delivery pace, quality control, cost control and risk
assessment.
In this context, the leveraging of digital twins specifically depends on two connectivity characteristics: (1) the network connectivity of the process
physical assets with a high quality of experience (QoE) without loss of connectivity, especially in mobility, (i.e. during movement of operators or M2M
terminals), and (2) geo-localization by means of accurate position monitoring of assets indoor and outdoor. The combination of these two characteristics
is a condition for the supervision and automation of production processes led at the scale of a whole center (around 10 to 30 Ha surface in indoor and/or
outdoor environments), as it is for risk management when tasks involving moving tools and train parts are under consideration.
The emerging 5G network technology will be considered and exploited in the project to study and demonstrate the opportunity to use a single
telecommunications technology to address all industrial needs of French railway company use-cases with a better satisfaction level. The project objective
is to define optimized scenarios for 5G networked application and to demonstrate their potential for supervision, teleoperation and quality control
management of train maintenance processes and workers security, and also to analyze the potential extension to any industrial context.
One of the project objectives is to transform relevant SNCF physical assets (wagon movers, spare parts boxes, ...) that are parts of the industrial process
in a technicenter into 5G enabled smart connected devices, with high level services, high visibility and responsiveness anywhere in the process and under
low energy consumption constraint, embedded data processing models, and sensor fusion capabilities. The smart 5G companion sticked to a physical
asset connected device is intended to fulfill the railway company expectations in assets supervision and management of the quality of operations carried
out on the industrial lines of the railway company technicentre. At the same time, the approach of a 5G Asset companion will address
some of the main challenging issues of todays' train maintenance processes by means of product servitization, product monitoring, tracing and tracking.
The prototype will be based on an available open system (Raspberry SoC and 5G modem).
The post doctorate research work will be conducted mainly at CRAN laboratory and in SNCF technicenter facility and will address mainly the
specification, development and prototyping ogf a digital twin architecture based on data and serv ices management from th 5G companion associated to
physical assets by responding to these objectives :
i) To specify advanced services for 5G SNCF applications and the most significant IA methods for optimizing the system and detecting/recovering
dysfunctioning
ii) To develop a prototype of a digital twin system based on data collected from 5G autonomous IoT device associated to SNCF industrial assets.
iii) To implement and validate the research work in the railway company technicentre with the help of project's partners.
iv) To produce scientific publication related to the research topics
The researcher will be required to travel to France and Germany for research meetings with partners, and to study and to implement the solution in the
French railway company technicentre.
The post doctorate student will join a team of academic researchers and industrial engineers and must have good knowledge and experience in HW/SW
and SoC system, programming, GSM / industrial networks, cyber-physical systems architectures, digital twin.
innovative solutions for 5G private networks in industry.
The common policy objective of France and Germany is to foster European sovereignty in private 5G networks to increase productivity and contribute to
the implementation and use of flexible and sustainable solutions in industry. The project partners are CRAN with major French railway company, Major
TelCo company and German Research Center.
The digital transformation of the industry can rely on digital twins to improve production costs through optimized supervision and quality control
processes. Technical centers in the railways industry are truly representative as overseeing both standard maintenance (preparation of trains between two
travels) and full renewal of trains at their half-life, so they are under huge constraints in terms of delivery pace, quality control, cost control and risk
assessment.
In this context, the leveraging of digital twins specifically depends on two connectivity characteristics: (1) the network connectivity of the process
physical assets with a high quality of experience (QoE) without loss of connectivity, especially in mobility, (i.e. during movement of operators or M2M
terminals), and (2) geo-localization by means of accurate position monitoring of assets indoor and outdoor. The combination of these two characteristics
is a condition for the supervision and automation of production processes led at the scale of a whole center (around 10 to 30 Ha surface in indoor and/or
outdoor environments), as it is for risk management when tasks involving moving tools and train parts are under consideration.
The emerging 5G network technology will be considered and exploited in the project to study and demonstrate the opportunity to use a single
telecommunications technology to address all industrial needs of French railway company use-cases with a better satisfaction level. The project objective
is to define optimized scenarios for 5G networked application and to demonstrate their potential for supervision, teleoperation and quality control
management of train maintenance processes and workers security, and also to analyze the potential extension to any industrial context.
One of the project objectives is to transform relevant SNCF physical assets (wagon movers, spare parts boxes, ...) that are parts of the industrial process
in a technicenter into 5G enabled smart connected devices, with high level services, high visibility and responsiveness anywhere in the process and under
low energy consumption constraint, embedded data processing models, and sensor fusion capabilities. The smart 5G companion sticked to a physical
asset connected device is intended to fulfill the railway company expectations in assets supervision and management of the quality of operations carried
out on the industrial lines of the railway company technicentre. At the same time, the approach of a 5G Asset companion will address
some of the main challenging issues of todays' train maintenance processes by means of product servitization, product monitoring, tracing and tracking.
The prototype will be based on an available open system (Raspberry SoC and 5G modem).
The post doctorate research work will be conducted mainly at CRAN laboratory and in SNCF technicenter facility and will address mainly the
specification, development and prototyping ogf a digital twin architecture based on data and serv ices management from th 5G companion associated to
physical assets by responding to these objectives :
i) To specify advanced services for 5G SNCF applications and the most significant IA methods for optimizing the system and detecting/recovering
dysfunctioning
ii) To develop a prototype of a digital twin system based on data collected from 5G autonomous IoT device associated to SNCF industrial assets.
iii) To implement and validate the research work in the railway company technicentre with the help of project's partners.
iv) To produce scientific publication related to the research topics
The researcher will be required to travel to France and Germany for research meetings with partners, and to study and to implement the solution in the
French railway company technicentre.
The post doctorate student will join a team of academic researchers and industrial engineers and must have good knowledge and experience in HW/SW
and SoC system, programming, GSM / industrial networks, cyber-physical systems architectures, digital twin.
Keywords:
5G, digital twin, product servitization, Internet of Things, smart Object
Department(s):
| Modeling and Control of Industrial Systems |
Publications:
