A digital twin describes the virtual representation of a real process. This twin is constantly updated with real data and can thus control and adapt the real model. Designing suitable digital twins for path planning of autonomous robots or drones is often challenging due to the large number of different dynamic environments and multi-task and agent systems. However, common path algorithms are often limited to two tasks and to finding shortest paths. In real applications, not only a short path but also the width of the passage with a path as centered as possible are crucial, since robotic systems are not ideal and require recalibration frequently. In this work, so-called homotopic shrinking is used to generate the digital twin, which can be used to extract all possible path proposals including their passage widths for 2D and 3D environments and multiple tasks and robots. The erosion of the environment is controlled by constraints such that the task stations, the robot or drone positions, and the topology of the environment are considered. Such a deterministic path algorithm can flexibly respond to changing environmental conditions and consider multiple tasks simultaneously for path generation. A distinctive feature of these paths is the central orientation to the non-passable areas, which can have significant benefits for worker and patient safety. The method is tested on 2D and 3D maps with different tasks, obstacles, and multiple robots. For example, the robust generation of the digital twin for a maze and also the dynamic adaptation in case of sudden changes in the environment is covered. This variety of use cases and the comparison with alternative methods result in significant advantages, such as high robustness, consideration of multiple targets, and high safety distances to obstacles and areas that cannot be traversed. Finally, it was shown that the environment for the digital twin can be reduced to reasonable paths by constrained shrinking, both for real 2D maps and for complex virtual 2D and 3D maps.

Digital transformation is omnipresent in our daily lives and its impact is noticeable through new technologies, like smart devices, AI-Chatbots or the changing work environment. This digitalization also takes place in product development, with the integration of many technologies, such as Industry 4.0, digital twins or data-driven methods, to improve the quality of new products and to save time and costs during the development process. Therefore, the use of data-driven methods reusing existing data has great potential. However, data from product design are very diverse and strongly depend on the respective development phase. One of the first few product representations are sketches and drawings, which represent the product in a simplified and condensed way. But, to reuse the data, the existing sketches must be found with an automated approach, allowing the contained information to be utilized. One approach to solve this problem is presented in this paper, with the detection of principle sketches in the early phase of the development process. The aim is to recognize the symbols in these sketches automatically with object detection models. Therefore, existing approaches were analyzed and a new procedure developed, which uses synthetic training data generation. In the next step, a total of six different data generation types were analyzed and tested using six different one- and two-stage detection models. The entire procedure was then evaluated on two unknown test datasets, one focusing on different gearbox variants and a second dataset derived from CAD assemblies. In the last sections the findings are discussed and a procedure with high detection accuracy is determined.

Current trends in product development are digital engineering, the increasing use of assistance tools based on artificial intelligence and in general shorter product lifecycles. These trends and new tools strongly rely on available data and will irreversibly change established product development processes. One example for such a new data driven tool is the plausibility check of linear finite element simulations with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). This tool is capable of determining whether new simulation results are plausible or non-plausible according to numeric input data. The digitalization and the increased use of data driven tools employing algorithms known from Artificial Intelligence also shifts the roles of many involved engineers. This paper describes and highlights this transition from current product development processes to a data driven / simulation driven product development process. Particularly, the shifts and changes of different roles and domains are illustrated and an example for changing roles in the design and simulation department is described. Furthermore, required adjustments in the design process are derived and compared to the current status.

Data-driven methods from the field of Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning are increasingly applied in mechanical engineering. This refers to the development of digital engineering in recent years, which aims to bring these methods into practice in order to realize cost and time savings. However, a necessary step towards the implementation of such methods is the utilization of existing data. This problem is essential because the mere availability of data does not automatically imply data usability. Therefore, this paper presents a method to automatically recognize symbols from principle sketches, which allows the generation of training data for machine learning algorithms. In this approach, the symbols are created randomly and their illustration varies with each generation. . A deep learning network from the field of computer vision is used to test the generated data set and thus to recognize symbols on principle sketches. This type of drawing is especially interesting because the cost-saving potential is very high due to the application in the early phases of the product development process.