Automation Lab Digital Twin

Stellenbosch University's Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering Department was kitting out a new Automation Lab and wanted to validate the layout — robot arms, human workstations, safety envelopes — before committing to physical installation. Rearranging industrial robots after the fact is expensive; checking the same decisions in a digital twin is cheap.

The secondary brief was around Industry 4.0 sensor research for the RTIMS (Real-Time Information Management Systems) project at the Mandela Mining Precinct, under Dr Karel Kruger (now Professor at Cambridge).

Modelled the full lab in Autodesk Inventor at true scale — room, fixtures, robot arms, tables and human reference figures — then exported into a VR environment so a person could walk through the proposed layout and evaluate reachability, safety envelopes and workflow at eye level. Much cheaper than moving a six-axis arm across a room.

In parallel, compiled and delivered an OEM/sensor technology evaluation report for RTIMS, surveying industrial sensors relevant to mining and recommending how to apply Industry 4.0 principles to the local sector.

Full-scale 3D CAD in Autodesk Inventor covering the lab geometry, robotic arms and human figures. Assembly constraints modelled the real installation so robot reach envelopes could be checked against workstations and walkways.

The Inventor model was exported to a VR walkthrough so safety assessment happened in first-person rather than on a screen — the user stood next to each machine in the virtual space and confirmed (or flagged) sight-lines, reach, and clearance.

Delivered a validated digital twin that the department used to finalise the lab layout before physical installation, plus a written Industry 4.0 sensor report recommending OEM technologies for the mining-sector RTIMS project. Also assisted a master's student's experimental work during the same internship.

Working under Dr Kruger on this project was my first exposure to applied robotics research — a through-line that eventually led to contributing to NAV2 and joining the SMACC2 research group.