One of our readers asked us:
"What are some of the applications of digital twin technology?
For those who don't know, a digital twin is an electronic or virtual version of a real-world thing that is kept in sync in real-time.
It uses data from IoT (Internet of things), which are contained in real-world objects.
This data allows engineers to monitor systems and make adjustments to the digital twin and see how the system would change in the real-world before making any expensive changes to the real-life system.
Applications of this can be found in several industries,
In this blog post, we will show you some of the most popular Digital Twin Applications.
So let's get started:
1. Quality management
With the amount of data you can acquire from IoT sensors,
A digital twin model can help You identify all the mishaps and potential errors that need to be fixed.
In addition, reworking systems in the digital twin and testing them is much faster and cheaper than real-world variants.
2. Healthcare
A future application is a digital twin of a human.
Providing healthcare workers with real-time analysis of the body, helping them optimize patient performance, cost, and care.
There is also an active part of it.
Digital twins can help improve the operational efficiency of hospitals by creating a digital twin of the building, care models, and staffing.
If you can determine the points of errors or slow down, it's much easier to improve.
3. Supply Chain Management
Digital twins are widely adapted in the logistics/supply chain industry.
They can be used for application such as:
Enhanced shipment protection,
If you know how certain conditions will affect your delivery, you can prepare for them and ensure that the end-customer received the product intact.
Optimizing warehouse design and operational performance.
Most warehouse owners don't know what the most effective warehouse layouts are for their company, but they can find out with a digital twin of their warehouse.
Simply testing hundreds of different layouts and their effect on real-time production will help determine warehouse managers' optimal layout.
Creating a logistics network.
If you think your current distribution route is the best, you haven't tested them in a digital twin environment, with ever-changing variables such as traffic situations, construction, road layout, and so on.
Companies need a digital twin of their distribution to ensure their packages get to the customer as fast as possible.
There are many more applications of a digital twin in the logistics industry, but those could take up an entire blog post independently.
For now, we will move on to the next application.
4. Automotive industry
Developing new cars in the real world is crazy expensive; that's why most development processes are virtual.
Digital Twins can speed up this process by creating virtual models of the car and the environment you want to test the car in.
It's one thing to crash 1000 cars in real life and have millions of dollars in production to waste than crashing 1000 cars in a digital twin where the cost is only a couple of kWh of electricity.
This is also without mentioning the safety risks testing these cars implies.
More intense and dangerous scenarios can be created in the digital twin than can be tested in the real world.
Another aspect is creating autonomous vehicles.
It's necessary to test autonomous cars in the real world, but if you can prepare their artificial intelligence through machine learning in a digital twin, the real-world test will be much smoother.
5. Process Automation
Various sensors on manufacturing lines can help create a digital twin of your production process and analyze essential performance indicators.
Adjustments to these indicators can be applied in the digital twin to identify new ways to optimize production and lower costs.
Conclusion
Digital Twins are the next logical step in IoT.
Almost all IoT applications can also have a digital twin application.
There are many implemented.