Three-Tank System Digital Twin

Overview

The three-tank system is a simple case study allows us to represent a system that is composed of three individual components that are coupled in a cascade as follows: The first tank is connected to the input of the second tank, and the output of the second tank is connected to the input of the third tank.

This example contains only the simulated components for demonstration purposes; therefore, there is no configuration for the connection with the physical system.

The three-tank system case study is managed using the DTManager, which is packed as a jar library in the tools, and run from a java main file. The DTManager uses Maestro as a slave for co-simulation, so it generates the output of the co-simulation.

The main file can be changed according to the application scope, i.e., the /workspace/examples/tools/three-tank/TankMain.java can be manipulated to get a different result.

The /workspace/examples/models/three-tank/ folder contains the Linear.fmu file, which is a non-realistic model for a tank with input and output and the TankSystem.aasx file for the schema representation with Asset Administration Shell. The three instances use the same .fmu file and the same schema due to being of the same object class. The DTManager is in charge of reading the values from the co-simulation output.

Example Structure

Digital Twin Configuration

This example uses two models, two tools, one data, and one script. The specific assets used are:

Asset Type	Names of Assets	Visibility	Reuse in Other Examples
Model	Linear.fmu	Private	No
	TankSystem.aasx	Private	No
Tool	DTManager-0.0.1-Maestro.jar (wraps Maestro)	Common	Yes
	maestro-2.3.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar (used by DTManager)	Common	Yes
	TankMain.java (main script)	Private	No
Data	outputs.csv	Private	No

This DT has multiple configuration files. The coe.json and multimodel.json are used by Maestro tool. The tank1.conf, tank2.conf and tank3.conf are the config files for three different instances of one model (Linear.fmu).

Lifecycle Phases

The lifecycles that are covered include:

Lifecycle Phase	Completed Tasks
Create	Installs Java Development Kit for Maestro tool
Execute	The DT Manager executes the three-tank digital twin and produces output in data/three-tank/output directory
Terminate	Terminating the background processes and cleaning up the output

Run the example

To run the example, change your present directory.

cd /workspace/examples/digital twins/three-tank

If required, change the execute permission of lifecycle scripts you need to execute, for example:

chmod +x lifecycle/create

Now, run the following scripts:

Create

Installs Open Java Development Kit 11 and pip dependencies. Also creates DTManager tool (DTManager-0.0.1-Maestro.jar) from source code.

lifecycle/create

Execute

Execute the three-tank digital twin using DTManager. DTManager in-turn runs the co-simulation using Maestro. Generates the co-simulation output.csv file at /workspace/examples/data/three-tank/output.

lifecycle/execute

Terminate

Stops the Maestro running in the background. Also stops any other jvm process started during execute phase.

lifecycle/terminate

Clean

Removes the output generated during execute phase.

lifecycle/terminate

Examining the results

Executing this Digital Twin will generate a co-simulation output, but the results can also be monitored from updating the/workspace/examples/tools/three-tank/TankMain.java with a specific set of getAttributeValue commands, such as shown in the code.

That main file enables the online execution of the Digital Twin and its internal components.

The output of the co-simulation is generated to the /workspace/examples/data/three-tank/output folder.

In the default example, the co-simulation is run for 10 seconds in steps of 0.5 seconds. This can be modified for a longer period and different step size. The output stored in outputs.csv contains the level, in/out flow, and leak values.

No data from the physical twin are generated/used.

References

More information about the DT Manager is available at:

D. Lehner, S. Gil, P. H. Mikkelsen, P. G. Larsen and M. Wimmer,
"An Architectural Extension for Digital Twin Platforms to Leverage
Behavioral Models," 2023 IEEE 19th International Conference on
Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), Auckland, New Zealand,
2023, pp. 1-8, doi: 10.1109/CASE56687.2023.10260417.