Real-Time Interaction and Monitoring of Collaborative Robots via AR/VR and Digital Twin in IIoT Frameworks

Abstract

The paper proposes a Digital Twin framework for a six-axis collaborative robotic arm, integrating Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR), the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and CAD modeling for real-time monitoring and interaction. The architecture comprises a physical subsystem, an xArm Lite 6 controlled via UFactory’s SDK and a Python pipeline that collects joint angles and publishes them to the ThingWorx platform and a virtual subsystem built in Unity, which retrieves this data through an API and updates the 3D replica every frame. To preserve kinematic consistency, the CAD model is joint-hierarchized, and transitions are smoothed via interpolation (Mathf.LerpAngle). Experimental evaluations indicate robust synchronization between the robot and its digital twin, with stable POST/GET latencies and a sub-second end-to-end delay, suitable for operational visualization and decision support. Results show that combining DT–AR/VR–IIoT enhances system transparency, facilitates analysis and training, and lays the groundwork for scaling to multi-robot scenarios, teleoperation, and human–robot collaboration. Identified limitations include latency optimization, increasing the sampling rate, and expanding the set of synchronized variables. The core contribution lies in designing and validating a portable, interoperable real-time synchronization loop, built on accessible technologies, that provides a reliable AR/VR interface for monitoring and controlling collaborative robotic systems.