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Digital Twin: An Innovative Technological Advancement Posted: July 3, 2020 @ 6:18 am |
IntroductionThe digital twin is actually a digital replica that is designed for both living and non-living physical entities. This technology is used to make a digital replica of physical assets like processes, people, places, systems, and devices in order to be used for various purposes. There are different definitions of a digital twin that are based on two important characteristics. First represents the connection between the physical model with their virtual counterpart. The second characteristic is established by generating real-time data using sensors. There are some other concepts with which digital twins can be compared; like cross reality environments, co-spaces, and mirror models. The IOT (Internet Of Things) acts as a foundation for digital twin technology. It plays a major role to enhance the digital twin technology. You can also find IOT development kits available to make projects in STEM education. Now with the advancement of technology, the digital twin integrated with AI and softer analytics can update and change their physical counterparts according to their virtual counterpart. A digital twin can update itself from multiple sources that help to represent near real-time status and working conditions. There are so many industrial sectors which are using this formative technology. Digital twin helps the industry to optimize their operation and maintenance of their physical assets, systems, and manufacturing process. The concept of Digital twin was introduced by David Gelernter in 1991. This information can be found in his book “Mirror Worlds”. Application of Digital Twin in IndustriesManufacturing Industry The digital twin technology is used with physical manufacturing objects to represent digital twin models which are also known as avatars. There are different levels where this technology can be implemented.
There is a very important role of the digital twin in an industry like improving the PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) that is used for manufacturing in both service and operations. Industries that are facing low productivity can be improved with the help of a digital twin. PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is a very time-consuming process for an industry in terms of efficiency, manufacturing, intelligence, service phase, improvement, and sustainability in product design. Digital twin helps to merge the physical product with virtual space. It gives access to the companies to have a digital footprint of their products. These footprints go through the process from design to development throughout the entire product life cycle.
There are several firms which are using digital twin technology like General electric, Arctic wind, and Mechanical solutions to increase their efficiency. For Example: In general electric, they use the technology of digital twin to administer and analyze data that they get from oil rigs, aircraft they produce and wind turbines. There is another firm named Arctic wind that operates multiple wind power plants in Norway. They were in the search of a solution to track the health of the wind turbines they produce. For that, they used digital twin technology by which they installed sensors on all their wind turbines to collect real-time data from their wind turbines. Now with this advanced technology, they can predict the problem before it happens. They also know about the performance of their turbines with the help of the digital twin. Healthcare Industry The Healthcare industry has two levels of dynamics. Those levels are mentioned below.
The field of healthcare is the new emerging sector that can improve their functioning by using digital twin technology. This technology has been used for the first time in the healthcare industry for product and equipment prognostics. It helps to promote the use of a more data-driven approach to healthcare. This technology helps to create personalized models for patients. Digital twin technology can help to monitor the health status of every individual patient. This technology has a key benefit for the healthcare sector since it can help to anticipate the response of each individual patient.
There are several healthcare firms investing their money to develop advanced healthcare solutions with digital twins. Philips is a great example of a firm that is using a digital twin. This technology helps patients to use preventive ways rather than reactive ways. There are many other such industries that use the technology of digital twins for increasing their productivity. Advantages and Characteristics of Digital Twins Technology1. Excellent Connectivity This is one of the key benefits of digital twin technology. Digital twin helps to establish connectivity between physical counterpart and digital counterpart for an effective performance. The connectivity that is created for digital twin is done by placing sensors on physical products to get the required data. 2. Offer Digital Traces This is another main characteristic of digital twin technology. It helps to provide a digital trace of products in which they are used. This trace will help the manufacturers to know about any weak spot in the machine in order to improve them. If some component of the machine is not working properly, they will know about that and can replace it with a good and improved one. This tracing system also helps to correct the design issue of the machine during the manufacturing process. 3. It is Smart and Reprogrammable Digital twin technology helps to reprogram products in various ways. It can reprogram the product with the help of sensors, AI technology and other technologies. When the product is reprogrammed it can perform better and different functionalities. For example, if we use digital twin technology for an engine, we can collect data related to the performance of the engine and can adjust it as per requirements and create a new version of the product. It is also used in advanced products such as the smart home hub. 4. Provide Manufacturing Intelligence Digital twin helps the industry to make real-time decisions. It helps the industry to develop intelligence over a period of time while collecting the machine data and therefore help human operators to make the right decisions at the right time. It also helps to provide real-time production data. The following are some additional direct and indirect advantages of digital twin technology.
ConclusionThe digital twin is an awesome technological innovation for the industry. It has helped to improve the performance of certain industries. It also helps the organization to make effective real-time decisions that saves time, energy, effort, and money. These decisions that an organization makes with the help of this technology have led to increased productivity and better working conditions. It also provides a digital trace of the products that were manufactured by the company and gives an alert when their products don’t work properly. It makes this technology quite efficient and productive. Digital twins also help in better planning, security implementation (smart home camera) and energy management. It is slowly catching up and being used in multiple industries successfully
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