Introduction

Yeah; "Digital Twins". I know what would be going on in your mind now is "babies". Okay, you have to take your mind off babies right now. Digital twins have nothing to do with babies. You'll find out soon what it means. And also, we would take a brief overview of the effects in the industrial revolution of this era.

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Licensed]

For a clearer understanding of the concept of digital twins, I would take a brief overview of the components that make up this, before I go to explain the meaning of digital twins. And for you to know, these comprise of: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and not forgetting the big guys; Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).

Artificial Intelligence

I've dealt on this concept in this post (you can refer to it for the basic knowledge of it), but I would just drop some more details here. Artificial Intelligence; as the name implies: is the simulation of the human level of cognition or intelligence in an unnatural way. And as you may have been aware of, this has gained massive adaption lately; from the self-driving cars, to the chatbot, to robotics, etc.

And no doubt, the advent of Memristor (or Electronic Synapse) has further led to the evolution of independent and autonomous AIs, just like the Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist (AIVA), which wowed the world by composing classic music. And fascinating enough, this was achieved completely devoid of human input.

But this is not where it stops; another idea has been strongly proposed for a long time now, and this is; the possibility of incorporating AI into our daily lives. This is just like proposing a possibility of living a "smart life", and making everything around us smart; from our homes, to our offices, to our cars, and even our schools. Now, this gave rise to the idea of "Internet of Things" (IoT).

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 Licensed]

Brief overview of IoT

Before the era of explosive technological advancements, there were just few internet enabled devices available. During the early part of last decade, just a handful of devices; like our PCs; were connected to the web. But in this era, millions of devices are connected per time to the web. If this figure looks large to you, then look at this. A recent survey had a prediction of how many devices would be connected to the internet by the year 2020 (based on systematic reviews of the evolution of web-based devices).

Over 50billion devices would be connected to the internet by the year 2020. Source.

Judging from this figure, that means we would be literally living in a smart world. And your technology would have access to your privacy in an unimaginable way. And the truth is; this has already started happening.

In a layman's term, IoT is the interconnection of your devices (phones, computers, smart fridge, cars, etc) to a single web interface, which would share a common data. For example; having a smart office that would recognise your presence, turns on the light automatically, sends signal to the computer to initiate a boot sequence, shuts down on its own when you leave. That is a tip of what IoT can offer.

Now, this is drawing us closer to the technology of digital twins. But before then, let me refresh our minds again of what AR and VR is.

VR and AR

Virtual Reality (VR); in a layman's term; is the creation of an entirely non-existent environment with the help of computer (Computer-Aided Design; CAD). This technology; most times; cuts off your perception from the immediate and true world, thus replacing it with a simulation generated by the computer, hence the name "Virtual" reality.

On the other hand, Augmented Reality does not cut off your perception of the real world, but enhances it with some virtual additions. For example; the 3D holographic projection of a real image. Note: No new environment was created, but the existing one was just enhanced by a superimposed 3D imagery. For some baseline knowledge of the concept of VR and AR, you can read up this earlier post I made. Now let's move further.

Digital Twins

Like I said before, digital twin is not "baby", so what is it? Okay let me try to explain it this way: Have you imagined the combination of the technologies of Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality to form a single whole? This is the idea of digital twin.

[Image of 3D factory simulation. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: 424ccdrums. CC BY-SA 4.0 Licensed]

Putting it this way: Digital twin is the virtual replication and representation of physical products, services, and systems. For example: A car manufacturing company may be proposing a design of a new model of smart car, but for the safety of human lives and properties, they can run a virtual prototype first, which would be an almost real-life representation of what would be obtainable with the real design. This is how digital twinning works. Just like the biological identical twin is a replica of each other, the digital twin is a representation of physical systems virtually.

It is also worthy to note that; among the components of digital twin I mentioned earlier; this system is also designed with a Machine Learning ability (which is integrated in sensors). The work of this is to constantly update the twinning system with data from interaction with experts, or through experiences for better optimisation of the products and/or services. Like the case of the smart car model I mentioned earlier; when the car would be manufactured, the data from the digital twin can be incorporated into it. And it can self-detect issues, even at the onset, before the driver gets to notice them. And it could inform the driver of human errors while driving (this is because the virtual prototype has been made to pass through randomized possible errors, and the data has been incorporated into the real model).

[Image of Underwater Simulation. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Licensed]

One of the major applications of this technology in this era can be found in the industrial sector. And as you may have been aware of, we are in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR or Industry4.0). But in contrast to the first industrial revolution that was characterized majorly by mechanization and augmentation of human physical labour by mechanical devices, this fourth industrial evolution is based on Artificial Intelligence and Automation.

Also, in this era, we have witnessed massive output of data and information resulting from complex automation and computational activities, thanks to IoT. Okay, since we have seen that this industrial age mainly runs on AI, the digital twin can be incorporated into the overall system to produce a kind of "smart industry".

In this smart industry, the human experts can interact with the real products and virtual products. For example; if you need to deploy a complex industrial setting, you can run a virtual simulation of it first before replicating it in the real world. So you don't have to be experimenting with tools that can pose threat to lives and to the overall system. And also, it would save some bucks that could arise from damages from human computational error.

With an advancement in this, we could be witnessing a far more efficient industrial sector soon, and ultimately a complementation of the human physical labour. No doubt, this would lead to the replacement of some human jobs by automation, but it will create some other kinds of jobs, more especially, jobs that require human expertise (maybe that's the price humanity would have to pay for industrial automation). 

But apart from the area of industry, the digital twins can have other applications in our offices, home, schools (an integration of a real and virtual classroom model). So you see, technology is rapidly evolving to form an integral part of our everyday lives.

Conclusion

We have seen the possibilities of combining the technologies of AI, AR, VR, and IoT to create a system called "digital twin", which is a virtual representation of a physical services, systems, or products. Now you see what I meant when I said earlier that your technology would have more data about you than you can ever imagine? We should all keep an open mind as we welcome emerging technologies.

Thanks for reading

References for further reading:

• Wikipedia/Digital-Twin
• Ibm.com/Digital-twin/IoT
• forbes.com/Digital-Twin
• Techtarget/fourth-industrial-revolution

All images are CC licenced and are linked to their sources

gif by @foundation