Digital Twin: Can you Do it Yourself?

Since the beginning of the 20th century, technology has been utilized to achieve better results and increase workforce productivity at the lowest cost. This passage from industrial revolutions is very well punctuated by Gjoko Muratovski, in an article published by Forbes Magazine:

“By the mid-1850s, powered by water and steam, the First Industrial Revolution marked the introduction of mechanized production. With the invention of electricity, by the beginning of the 1900s, the Second Industrial Revolution enabled mass production to take place. Between the 1950s and the 1970s, the Third Industrial Revolution leveraged the use of electronics and information technology to automate mass production. At the turn of the century, new cyber-physical systems started shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution with the intent of taking the automation process to an entirely new level.”

It was during the Fourth Industrial Revolution that Digital Twin technology was developed. To be more precise, it was in 2002 that? Michael Grieves conceived a new concept for manufacturing: the Digital Twin technology.?

Briefly, Digital Twin is a virtual replica of a physical object in a digital platform, where one can input data, simulate, plan, predict and act virtually, to better understand the real physical object.?

Unlike the BIM Model, Digital Twin technology builds a continuous flow of data between the virtual model and the physical object and may or may not contain a 3D model,? being also possible to build a Digital Twin using different levels of development (LOD).?

Having as its differential the interaction of several data sources on the same platform, it is broadly used by industries from different sectors. From smart cities with Digital Twin of road systems,? sanitation, and public buildings, to healthcare systems making Digital Twin of patients, it is a technology poised to grow.?

In fact, 2022 is expected to see industries shell out $4.6 billion globally on digital-twin-based solutions, according to a December 2021 report by market research firm ABI research. The company also expects the market to hit $33.3 billion by 2030.?

How can you build a Digital Twin by yourself??

In reality, it would require a lot of study, effort, and investment to start a digital twin from scratch and build it completely by yourself. However, on account of the constant development of this technology and others, such as IoT, 5G, and Artificial intelligence, it is possible to accelerate parts of the process, enabling in terms of cost and logistics, the creation of digital twins of small equipment, as simple motors, specific machines, and so on.

This new possibility contradicts the judgment of many who believe that digital twins are only cost beneficial for major applications such as Oil and Gas or other extensive industrial plants.

How would it work in practice??

One example is Vidya technology, a company that develops technologies for operation and maintenance, understood that for small applications, highly complex and expensive 3D models to detail the asset is not necessary, in those cases a representation with a low level of development (LOD1) is able to contextualize the necessary data on the digital twin.

Furthermore, Vidya digital twin platform is able to synchronize and display field scannings on the digital replica. While this requires some effort boarding teams to scan those major industrial assets, the situation for small applications is different.?

Now that’s the part where DIY comes in because on some kinds of cell phones, you are able to capture images and 3d scan the asset by yourself, providing data to be promptly synchronized on the Digital Twin.

Thus, it is possible to imagine a future in which the process of developing a Digital Twin is no longer so complex, and that at a low complexity level can be done even without major modeling tools. From there, the inputs can be made even by checklists in a platform prepared with Artificial Intelligence can even graphics and from what they were designed in the system.?

In this way, Digital Twin technology can be more democratic, and the result for any operation in many services is an automated process with safe decisions. Have you ever thought about this possibility? Leave your comment about what you think the future of the Digital Twin will be!