Digital Casting System

Digital Casting System (DCS) is a Innosuisse project as well as a new novel approach for Smart Dynamic Casting(SDC). This package works to transition automated digital casting systems from the laboratory to the industry scale by overcoming the challenges addressed by inline mixing. DCS involves identifying optimal values for comprehensive system parameters, including processing and material characteristics, while carefully considering specific system requirements.

This package has three parts, which contain PLC controller for control compenments, DCS library for middleware, robotic control, and data handling; lastly, DCS application uses for realtime data recoding and production simulation.

• PLC controller driver package
• DCS library
• DCS application for grahic real-time data recording

Requirements

Operating System and Software.

• Windows 10/11 or Ubuntu 22.04
• TwinCAT 3
• Anaconda 3
• Docker

CAD/CAM software and Simulation.

• ABB RobotStudio
• Rhino and Grasshopper

Getting Started

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/USI-FMAA/digital_casting_system.git

# Update the submoudles
git submodule init
cd external_controllers
git checkout master # checkout the lastest version
git pull

# Alneratively way
git submodule foreach git pull origin master

# Update the submoudles
git pull --recurse-submodules

# Setup the environment
# Create the environment and activate it
conda create --prefix ./.env python=3.10

# Install dependencies
conda activate ./.env
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Install compas framework
conda install compas
pip install git+git://github.com/WeiTing1991/compas_rrc.git@master

Developer Installation

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PLC Controller

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Robot communication

Real ABB robotic control

# docker compose up
# virtual controller
docker-compose -f .\external_controllers\robot\docker_compas_rrc\virtual_controller\docker-compose.yml up

# real controller
# clean the stopped container
docker container prune
# compose up and connect with docker container
docker-compose -f .\external_controllers\robot\docker_compas_rrc\real_controller\docker-compose.yml up

Simulation with ABB robot

ABB RobotStudio

CAD/CAM software(Rhino and grasshopper)

Concrete Controller

The sub-package external_controllers is a package that provides a set of driver to control the concrete casting machines. More information can be found in digital casting system controller

Credits

This package was created by WeiTing Chen at USI-FMAA and ETHZurich DFab