Model-based development represents a part of a future product lifecycle management that is fully supported by virtual development techniques, such as the Digital Twin methodology.

One of the most important and obvious advantages of virtual development techniques is the time saved compared to the classic process of sequential product development, as system analysis and optimisation as well as control development and testing take place at a very early stage of the project.

At present, however, virtual development techniques are mostly carried out only by larger companies whose development departments have sufficient resources and a broad engineering base for mechatronic system development. With the aim of making virtual development techniques accessible to companies with limited development capacities and budgets, FLUIDON has designed Fluidon Cube - the Virtual Engineering Lab (VEL).

Fluidon Cube is a modular, extensible development environment based on open source toolkits and standardised interface definitions for building and orchestrating simulation models (digital twins).

Cube's range of applications includes the creation of workflows for system analysis and optimization of the digital twin, automated analysis of simulation results or measurement data, including report generation e.g. as PowerPoint or Excel file, up to coupling the digital twin to fieldbus networks in order to provide control developers with virtual commissioning techniques for SiL and HiL applications.