Digital Triads as Next-Generation Mechatronic Systems for Sustainability-A Case Study

With the rapid development of information technologies, networking, and artificial intelligence, mechatronics has continuously evolved for several generations from traditional mechatronics to digital twins (DT-I), cyber-physical systems (CPSs), Internet of Things (IoT), human CPSs, and to metaverse nowadays. This article examines such a development trend from a new perspective in enhancing the sustainability of products or systems. To fill the technical gaps of existing concepts in supporting sustainable developments of next-generation mechatronic systems, we propose the concepts of digital triads (DT-II) and Internet of DT-II things; these concepts aim to expand the capabilities of mechatronic systems in dealing with changes and uncertainties in dynamic business environments and prolonging systems' lifespans through technological integration. For example, DT-II is innovative in the sense that it extends the capabilities of CPS or DT-I by introducing a life model so that relevant data, models, and methods can be preserved and transferred when a product or system needs reconfiguring to satisfy new requirements. DT-II promotes concurrent engineering in decision-making supports in the digital and physical worlds so that a product or system can be reconfigured to satisfy new requirements optimally. This smoothens the transitions in sustainable manufacturing and prolongs the enterprise's lifespan. To showcase the use and significance of DT-II, a case study of DT-II for sustainable product development is developed to predict the performance of new products for a client company. The developed DT-II is fully verified and validated for use, and the proposed procedure is generalized and can be used to develop DT-II for other products and systems for enhanced sustainability.