Digital Twin and its uses in the modern world
What is a Digital Twin?
At its simplest, a digital twin is a virtual replica of a physical product, process, or system. It acts as a bridge between the physical and digital worlds by using sensors to collect real-time data about a physical item. This data is then used to create a digital duplicate of the item, allowing it to be understood, analyzed, manipulated, or optimized. Other terms used to describe the technology over the years have included virtual prototyping, hybrid twin technology, virtual twin, and digital asset management.
Although digital twins have been around for several decades, it’s only been since the rapid rise of IoT that they’ve become more widely considered as a tool of the future. They’re getting attention because they also integrate things like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to bring data, algorithms, and context together, enabling organizations to test new ideas, uncover problems before they happen, get new answers to new questions, and monitor items remotely.
How Are Digital Twins Being Used?
Now that we’ve addressed the often elusive question, what is digital twin technology?, we can now explore how the technology has been used to improve business processes. Digital twins were traditionally used to improve the performance of single assets, such as wind turbines or jet engines. In recent years, however, they have become more sophisticated. Now, they connect not just one asset but rather systems of assets or even entire organizations. As they bring together more and more assets and combine them with information about processes and people, their ability to help solve complex problems is also increasing.
More than just a visualization, a digital twin can accelerate innovation, build consensus, and save time and money by modeling changes, testing how components or systems function, and troubleshooting malfunctions inexpensively in a virtual world.
A digital twin is a virtual representation of an object, process, or system that bridges the gap between the physical and digital worlds. It links the smart device sensors of physical components that gather real-time data on the working condition, position, or other characteristics of physical items with the virtual representations of those items in the digital twin.
By connecting components to a cloud-based system that processes the data gathered, the performance of entities in the physical world can be used in analyzing the performance of virtual models. Digital twins generate efficiencies by optimizing operations and workflows and proactively improving asset management by working with virtual objects and systems.
Recently, the effects of continually increasing computational capabilities and the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) have closed the gap between the promise of the digital twin and its reality. Although originally pioneered to improve the operations of manufacturing plants, the use of digital twins has been expanded to applications such as supply chains, wind farms, and even cities.
With its 3D and spatial analysis capabilities and the evolving integration of technologies such as building information model (BIM), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR), GIS offers tremendous benefits for modeling impacts and improving operations through the use of digital twins by government and industry for activities such as :
Creating a feedback loop between the design and production and between the virtual and real worlds yields substantial savings in time and money and a better understanding of processes and impacts.
Future of the Digital Twin
For companies and organizations that already use IoT, digital twins are the next step along the digital journey. They can be used to improve efficiencies, optimize processes, detect problems before they occur, and innovate for the future. If your organization is interested in producing not only better business outcomes, but also better outcomes for everyone, digital twins are worth exploring.
