A Digital Twin architecture for monitoring and quality assessment for a composite filament extrusion pilot line
Giuseppe Serratore, Francesco Borda, Antonio Cosma, Francesco Gagliardi, Luigino Filice
Abstract
In the composite materials sector, ensuring high quality during the production process is fundamental for all industrial applications. This paper presents a Digital Twin (DT) architecture for monitoring and quality evaluating in a thermoplastic composite filament extrusion line. The pilot line uses a Raspberry Pi 4 to orchestrate all the parameters of the extrusion process, continuously monitoring key factors such as temperature, diameter of the extruded filament and filament tension, the latter related to the current absorbed by the DC motor used to pull the extruded filament. Data from sensors connected to the Raspberry Pi 4 are transmitted to the App via Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, and then processed by the DT software. This post-processing includes noise filtering and reliability checks, ensuring that only high-quality data are used for monitoring and analysis. Temperature estimations, filament diameter, and filament tension are visualized in near real-time, offering graphical representations useful for the operators to track process stability and quickly detect deviations from set parameters. This approach aims to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the extrusion process, providing a robust solution for quality control and operational monitoring in the production of thermoplastic composite filaments.