But what does a digital twin have to do with rocket science?
How can you Operate, maintain or repair systemswithout them being in the immediate vicinity, such as a space shuttle or a carrier rocket from Elon Musk?
Digital Twins are not rocket science, but this great example of what they stand for comes from rocket science. At the time of the space pioneers, an answer was found to the requirement for the Monitoring and control of remote systems in the form of mirrored systems an early form of digital twins. This innovation is one of the key success factors that enabled the rescue of the astronauts on the Apollo 13 mission.
What is a digital twin anyway?
A digital twin is a digital device that Virtual representation of real objects and systems.
NASA is not the only organization to use this concept, which is more than 30 years old. At Simulation of material behavior, manufacturability and process models operates with virtual images, the digital twins.
A Digital Twin has:
- Sensors that provide a snapshot.
- Connectivity to network.
- defined data structures and simple analysis functionality if required.
- an interface to visualize the data.
Only the Combination of all four properties makes up a digital twin, which then analytical solutions such as Predictive maintenance and thus enables a considerable economic value represents.
It is not uncommon for Complex installations or systems consisting of several Digital Twinswhich are then merged into a large composite digital twin.
To recognize the value of a Digital Twin, you first need to understand what it can do and how it can benefit you.
In the case of complex, expensive systems, services or processes, the Improving capacity utilization extremely valuable by reducing system downtimes and lowering overall maintenance costs.
Sensors and connectivity are usually installed very close to the action and at critical points on a machine, e.g. a gearbox. They can send their measured values to the Digital Twin. In this way, a digital twin can indicate that a component is about to fail because it has reached its maximum mileage. It can send a Defective componentwhich is noticeable through small anomalies, for example, but cannot be seen from the outside, Detect and report. So you can Maintenance planned before a defect which is also known as predictive maintenance.
A digital twin can therefore Reduce operating costs and the Extending the service life of devices and systems - and therefore represents considerable value for companies. Apart from this, digital twins are also the Enabler for new business models.
A well-known example of this is Rolls Royce. The company offers its aircraft engines as a service; the business model is also known as "Product as a service". The Rolls Royce Business Model is called "TotalCare" and includes Provision, monitoring, maintenance and repair for the entire service life of the engine. If the engine does not fly, it does not cause any costs for the user. Rolls Royce is thus also building a bridge to the sluggish spare parts market, because Third-party suppliers for spare parts hardly stand a chance here.
The digital twin in the IoT platform
No IoT platform can do without the digital twin. Here it acts as a smaller unit: as Device Twin. A device twin forms the basis for the Management and configurability of IoT devices within the IoT platform and can then be used to complex systems become.
This digital image of the IoT device is a Representation of the device status information such as metadata, configurations and conditions.
The illustration shows a simplified schematic representation of a device twin. It shows the communication between the backend and the IoT device (device app). The most important properties shown are the "reported" and the "desired properties". The reported properties can only be written by the device, while the desired properties can only be written by the backend.
The device twin records status information from sensors on the IoT device, for example (reported properties), and notifies the backend. The backend can then process the new data further, e.g. to carry out analyses.
Necessary setting changes (desired properties) for the systemthat may result from the analysis of the data are then analyzed by the Backend passed on to the Device Twin and the IoT device is notified. This ensures the quality of production, for example.
This is how the Access to real-time data in remote complex systems that are in full operation and can influence them immediately.
This opens up completely new ways for machine manufacturers to Very accurate predictions for production processes or machines to make decisions - e.g. about the service life. The findings from the information provided by the Device Twin can be used to develop an improved new generation of machines, for example.
The Concept of the digital twin has been around for a long time and its value has always been high. However, the cost of using a digital twin has always been high.
Today the Costs down significantly and the Digital Twin has become more intelligent at the same time by deep insights into his real-life role model gives.
The limits of digital twins have not yet been reached and the area of application is no longer limited to machines. Whole Bicycle fleets are managed with the help of Digital Twins, such as with Connected Bike and also in the Human medicine Digital Twins are used, for example, for a natural family planning.
Sources:
[1] https://blogs.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/files/2017/08/Emerging-Technology-Hype-Cycle-for-2017_Infographic_R6A.jpg ^
[2] Image: https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/azure/iot-hub/iot-hub-devguide-device-twins
