DIGITAL TWINS
MEDICAL & HEALTHCARE
Digital Twins act as a digital replica for the physical object or service they represent in the healthcare industry, providing monitoring and evaluation without being in close proximity. Digital Twins are able to provide a secure environment for testing the impact of changes on the performance of a system. By distorting reality with system dynamics through machine, process or living body, problems can be predicted if and when they occur, with time to implement necessary changes or procedures. This will enable optimal solutions and risk reduction which is particularly important in the health sector. Smart machines are more advanced than humans accurately and consistently gathering and communicating data. This enables any inefficiencies and issues to be spotted quickly in order to save time,
By creating a Digital Twin of a hospital, operational strategies, capacities, staffing, and care models can be observed to determine what actions to take. Virtual models can assist in bed shortages, spreading of germs, staff schedules, and operating rooms. These will help to optimize patient care, cost, and performance. Digital Twins can virtualize the hospital in order to create a safe environment, which tests the influences of changes on system performance without risks. This is hugely important in healthcare as it enables informed strategic decisions to take place in a highly complex and sensitive environment.
Digital Twin technology can also be used for modelling an individual’s genomic makeup, physiological characteristics, and lifestyle to create personalized medicine. It has a more individual focus than precision medicine which typically focuses on sample groups within the population. Developing a Digital Twin of a human body consists of a more advanced process than any product of engineering. Sensors can efficiently provide data to a Digital Twin of any engineered object, but data derived from individuals typically comes from expensive time-consuming tasks, such as blood tests and scans.
money and lives. Digital twins are actively playing a crucial role in both hospital design and patient care.
OIL & GAS
A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical object or process and it is important because it allows analysis of the data and systems involved in a new concept before they have even happened. It is a bridge between the physical and digital world.
It is the advent of cloud computing together with machine learning algorithms and rapid computing power that has made the idea of integrating all data together a practical reality. ‘Smart’ components containing sensors are used to gather data about the real-time status, working condition and position of a physical item, such as an engine – or an offshore drilling rig. The data is sent to a cloud-based system, which stores and analyzes it, combining it with and comparing it to other relevant data, so the twin simulates the physical object. Additional information integrated with the sensor data into the twin includes engineering content, such as diagrams and specifications, as well as financial considerations and uncertainties like weather, customer demand and supply disruption. Updating is constant and in real time, so fast decisions can be made using all available information.
FACTORIES & MANUFACTURING
One of the initial areas of focus for implementation of the digital twins has been asset lifecycle management (ALM). Maintaining assets in the field has traditionally been a time-consuming and costly task, but critical to equipment and system uptime.
Today, maintenance technicians can leverage technologies like augmented reality (AR) where they can access virtual engineering models and overlay these models over the physical equipment on which they are performing maintenance using specialized AR goggles or glasses. This enables them to use the most accurate and up-to-date engineering, helping ensure that the correct maintenance and performance specifications are performed efficiently. These same maintenance methods, based on merging of virtual and physical environments, can be applied to factory production systems, machines, and work cells.
Today’s advanced virtual simulation technology is an integral component of the digital twin. Comprehensive simulation platforms can simulate and validate the functionality of product design concurrently, enabling the designers to validate their designs as they go. In the context of the digital twin, real-time sensor data can be used to populate simulation applications that then emulate the physical product and enable design improvements.
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