Digital Twin Sterilizer

Sammanfattning

An autoclave is an advanced machine that sterilizes objects using high-pressure and high heat, with water steam as the medium. Autoclaves are frequently found in hospitals and other places where sterility is required. This project aims to meet the company's need to create a digital twin (DT) of an autoclave. The purpose is to test the control unit that controls the physical autoclave by exposing the DT to the same program as a real autoclave. A DT is a virtual model of a physical system, and in this project, it represented the autoclave and its sensors. The model was programmed in a graphical programming language NI LabView, with the same input and output signals as a real autoclave. The model was based on data-driven logic rather than physical based logic. From a real autoclave run where signals were recorded every second, conclusions could be drawn about how much each unique analog signal changed in combination with other signals through interpolation. The interpolation of the analog signals was used to capture the characteristics of these signals. For validation, the DT was loaded into a Hardware In the Loop (HIL) system that simulates the autoclave with the DT but retains the control unit from the autoclave, which is the unit the company wants to test. The developed DT was tested against three goals describing how closely the values should align over an accumulated time. The results were compared each second between the real run and the DT run. The data-driven DT model met one of the three goals set, however, the DT model's characteristics resembled those of the real run, making the model useful as the control system does not interrupt the simulation for disallowed or deviant values.