Digital Twin of 3d Motion Compensated Gangway Use of Unity Game Engine and TwinCAT PLC Control for Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation

Abstract

This thesis presents the development, implementation, and testing of a digital twin representing a 3D compensated gangway located on a service operation vessel for wind farms The real-time simulator runs on a separate thread in the Unity game engine and interfaces with a PC-based control system, including the control algorithms. The simulations in Unity achieve a step time of 5 μs, and the communication to the control system has a latency of 10ms.The PLC program in TwinCAT, running real-time on a separate computer, controls the hydraulic actuated gangway simulator with acceptable accuracy in 3m waves. Active damping employing pressure feedback to introduce artificial leakage was implemented to the hydraulic control system, increasing the hydraulic system’s damping, hence improving the motion performance.