Integrating Digital Twin Capabilities with Mixed Reality Technology - An Opportunity in Educational Engineering

Digital Twin technology has emerged as a powerful tool for simulating and optimizing complex systems, however, interacting with them can be challenging, especially for novice users. The paper presents a Mixed Reality application implemented on a Head-mounted Holographic Display (HoloLens2) for the Digital Twin of a pneumatic cylindrical robot, providing an intuitive, immersive, and interactive user experience for safely commanding each actuator of the robot from both the Digital Twin and the real robot. Moreover, multiple users can synchronize their views of the robot, fostering collaborative learning and knowledge sharing. Several functionalities are implemented, such as manipulation of the robot's kinematics, visualization of the pneumatic diagram, and simulation of different scenarios, which prove the potential of this approach for enhancing academic training in robotics. The results of the experiments show that the Mixed Reality front-end provides an effective means to interact with Digital Twin models, improving student's learning outcomes and engagement in robotics education.