The Transformative Power Of Digital Twin Technology In Space Exploration

Aveva chief technologist of XR Maurizio Galardo expects to see simulation tools move from finessing products designed to solve specific tasks to enabling a container of features that allow users to synthesize complete product designs quickly. These simulation microservices could be reused across different design, simulation, and production workflows. It gets its name from the way that companies are building virtual equivalents, or twins, of physical objects. These digital copies are increasingly popular because they can be used to drive important simulations that haven’t been possible until now. The practical applications of digital twins seem endless, already enabling more and more work to transition to virtual environments.

Digital twins simulations have traditionally focused on simulating product performance characteristics. Improvements in sensors embedded in the manufacturing process are enabling inferential models that can simulate manufacturability characteristics that affect quality, cost, and ease of assembly. Tempo Automation’s chief product officer Jeff Kowalski said that inferential modeling techniques automate the process of generating digital twin models through direct observation. NASA utilized a digital twin for the James Webb Space Telescope to monitor its complex deployment process, ensuring its successful operation. This digital twin tracked 800 million data points daily, allowing engineers to visualize and predict the effects of changes and troubleshoot issues efficiently.

Healthcare that’s free until you get results

“Servicing, maneuvering, refueling, those are all future things that we’re exploring,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen Purdy, program executive officer of assured access to space. Twin’s outcome-based payment system is a “brilliant” healthcare model, Guess said. Sometimes called “value-based” healthcare, this new approach requires a company like Twin to actually improve a patient’s wellbeing — by improving their blood sugar or propelling weight loss, for example — before they can charge the employer.

Digital twins, unprecedented collaboration: What the metaverse means for developers

Vadlakonda’s work, especially in the context of edge computing and federated learning, allows smartphones to collect and analyze vast amounts of data locally, in real time, on the device. This enables the smartphone to act as a personal cyber-physical system, continually learning and adapting to the user’s preferences and behaviors. For example, a smartphone could track a user’s movement patterns, sleep cycles, and environmental conditions, creating a digital twin of the user’s daily life. This dynamic model would not only predict the user’s needs — such as suggesting health tips or optimal work schedules — but also offer proactive solutions to enhance their well-being.

This level of insight can feed directly into product development cycles, as well as inform production schedules and supply chain logistics based on consumer demand. The Generative AI techniques used in deep fakes are also getting better at refining and optimizing the simulation models used for different digital twins. Vadlakonda’s federated learning framework is particularly crucial in the context of smartphones acting as personal cyber-physical systems. As users become increasingly concerned about the security and privacy of their data, this approach enables AI-powered personal assistants to learn and evolve based on individual behaviors while keeping the data on the device. Whether it’s tracking user health, environmental conditions, or daily routines, federated learning ensures that all information stays private and secure.

• While the concepts behind digital twins are decades old, originating at NASA, these ideas are being democratized beyond rocket scientists to industries operating in the physical world.
• Global beauty chain Sephora builds DToCs to predict products that customers would most likely be interested in, based on their purchase and browsing history.
• By creating a digital twin of the user’s health, the smartphone could offer personalized insights into the user’s habits, such as recommending exercise routines, suggesting healthier food options, or even warning the user about potential health risks based on their historical data.
• Top omniverse use cases will combine simulation and collaboration for urban planning, location scouting, architectural acceptance, logistics, UAV flight planning, and insurance.
• Integrating diverse data sources with different formats and standards also presents considerable challenges.

We’re at the point where I believe we’ll start to see strategies that aim to predict, rather than react, rise to the top of the priority list. In a retail environment, digital twins enable a safe space to innovate, and they will become crucial in personalising a richer, more data-driven and captivating engaging customer experience while providing the power for retailers to move from insight to action. Simulation tools providers like Synopsys are finding ways to simulate that span chip design and the software that runs on them. This promises to improve collaboration for products like automobile chips that have faced significant shortages owing to the integration challenges of more modern chip designs. Synopsys verification group vice president of engineering Tom De Schutter sees big promise in developing scalable digital threads that operate across the supply chain to reflect individual components through full system products.

• DToCs can also be a powerful tool for supporting new products, services and digitalisation efforts.
• Targeted for the most part at industry and manufacturing, Fortune Business Insights projected the market to be valued at $11.51 billion in 2023 with a CAGR of 42.6% through 2030.
• Companies such as Siemens are supporting a revolution in food tech with the digital twin serving as the end-to-end applied tool in both the supply chain and product management.
• These industrial digital twins are used for troubleshooting, modeling, what-if analysis and more.
• Simulation containers promise to build on the success of application containers underpinning agile software development and deployment practices.

Allowing humans to interact with digital twins in an industrial metaverse presents many interesting opportunities to improve operations and safety and to take chances that would be outlandishly dangerous in production environments. The benefits of a digital twin to the auto industry are numerous, such as its ability to provide customers with improved access to data and create a more immersive and effective buying experience. It can help car buyers make informed decisions through tailored recommendations and services, such as personalised vehicle settings and maintenance schedules. Digital twin technology has revolutionized the space industry by enhancing mission design, testing and management. Organizations like NASA, ESA and the Department of Defense utilize this technology to improve reliability, efficiency and success. As digital twins evolve, their role in space exploration and utilization becomes increasingly vital.

factors heating up the popularity of digital twins and simulations

And since apps and software are already at the center of every business and organization, developers have a unique opportunity to shape what the metaverse becomes with help from these newfound collaborative capabilities. In this op-ed, Ciaran Park, executive technology director, Australia at R/GA looks into how retailers can make the Digital Twin of a Customer central to their digital strategy. These advancements enable humanity to preemptively reach new frontiers by simulating and resolving complex challenges, resulting in safer, more efficient missions and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Digital twins are indispensable partners in navigating space’s complexities, uncovering opportunities and overcoming obstacles. Though he says he has had some recent health issues that have pushed him back on the cheap diabetes pill metformin, he thinks within a month or two he’ll be able to go medication-free again. His weight has also crept up about 20 pounds, but he’s feeling confident he can lose about 10 of those again and then maintain a stable weight.