Digital Twins Cut Robot Drive Development

Virtual commissioning just got real—NORD's digital twins cut weeks from development.

NORD Drivesystems has rolled out digital twins for system development, targeting robotics developers who want to validate drive concepts before a single hardware prototype ships. The platform, built around a myNORD configuration, can generate individually tailored drive-system simulation models that let engineers verify whether a given concept will work in a whole system long before physical testing begins. The promise: dramatically shorter planning cycles and fewer late-stage design changes, even for projects with complex drives.

This move positions NORD at the intersection of plant-wide simulation and drive engineering. The company notes that digital twins enable virtual commissioning, a practice that lets teams validate control logic, mechanical interfaces, and safety interlocks in a simulated environment. Since the FMI (Functional Mock-up Interface) standard began gaining traction in 2010, model-based engineering has become a more common workflow, and NORD leans into that with a service model that creates data-based simulations of its components and drive solutions. In short, the twins aren’t mere screenshots; they’re working models that can be fed back into the planning and integration steps of a project.

NORD Drivesystems is a sizable, long-running player in motion control. Based in Bargteheide, Germany, the company has about 4,700 employees and has been developing, producing, and selling drive technology since 1965. The new digital-twin offering leverages that depth of hardware know-how and translates it into a virtual asset that customers can reuse across projects. Engineering documentation shows that the service covers not only standard drives but also application-specific concepts—precisely the kind of customization that tends to blow up schedules when validated late in the cycle.

From a practitioner’s lens, the development impact hinges on fidelity, integration, and data plumbing. Demonstration footage shows a tangible reduction in iteration time for drive concepts, but the real value will depend on how accurately the simulation mirrors real-world behavior during dynamic tests, startup sequencing, and fault conditions. The technical specifications reveal a shift from static model checks to end-to-end virtual commissioning, which should help teams catch incompatibilities between control software, drive hardware, and the robot’s mechanical structure early.

Some practical insights to watch for as this approach scales:

Virtual commissioning accelerates planning but is only as good as the model. Expect calibration work to be ongoing, especially for friction, backlash, and dynamic loads that reveal themselves only under real motion.

Data-based simulations enable rapid concept sweeps. If teams feed representative field data back into the twin, they can converge on robust drive architectures and safety interlocks earlier in the program.

FMI compatibility matters. The adoption of FMI standards enhances interoperability across engineering tools, controllers, and test benches, reducing brittle handoffs between teams.

Real-world readiness remains a question. The current push appears focused on planning and development rather than field deployments, so the TRL sits in a controlled-environment/virtual-commissioning space rather than live robot installations.

The offering marks a meaningful improvement over earlier digital-twin concepts, which often provided generic or component-level models rather than end-to-end drive-system simulations. By tying the twin to a configurable myNORD setup and emphasizing virtual commissioning, NORD offers a more practical, reusable asset for robotics development teams—one that could shave weeks off a project timeline and reduce late-stage surprises in integration.

If you’re evaluating this for a humanoid project, the path is clear: start with the drive system in a mirrored twin, validate the joint control and safety logic virtually, and only then commit real hardware. The next question will be how quickly NORD can extend these digital twins to more sophisticated actuation schemes, multiphysics interactions, and field-ready deployments, but the foundation is already shifting the early-phase risk calculus in favor of faster, more deterministic development cycles.

Sources

NORD releases digital twin simulation platform for robotics developers