Digital Twin
A new paradigm connecting the boundaries of physical and digital worlds
Connecting reality with virtual, and virtual with virtual.
What is Digital Twin?
A digital twin is a digital replica of a physical twin (physical assets, processes, and systems). It's not about turning imagination into something virtual, but creating a replica using the physical twin or something potentially realizable as the original. This is why the lifecycle of a digital twin is connected to and lives together with the real system. The key point is that experiments that cannot be conducted in the real world or are too costly can find real-world answers through digital twins. There are three components: spatial and shape information of real-world spaces and objects, behavioral models of real-world objects, and operational data from the real system.
Creating a twin in the virtual world identical to reality, simulating situations that could occur in reality, controlling reality, or predicting results in advance.
After COVID, the market has explosively shifted from B2B to D2C. Multi-channel distribution networks, fragmented consumer groups, small-batch production of various products, increased demand for customized products, shortened product life cycles, and dynamically changing value chains have all exponentially increased the complexity of logistics, pushing existing infrastructure to its limits. When considering the reuse of existing infrastructure to adapt to the changing ecosystem, converting actual production lines is like 'replacing an engine on an airplane in flight.' However, if we create virtual twins through digital twins and accurately measure logistics complexity, it becomes the key to unlimited possibilities for precisely measuring reality and predicting the future.
Digital twins are built on engineerable 3D CAD data. Digital engineering is the ultimate essence of digital twins.
Since our digital twins are for engineering purposes, they must contain metadata from the real world needed for engineering, such as CAD/CAM/CAE/BIM data. To replicate reality based on the same lengths and scales, we continuously focus on narrowing the gap between physical twins and digital twins. This is ultimately the essence that enables digital engineering.
WE MADE BEFORE WE MADE!
Traditionally, CPS and DT took a 'Real to Sim' approach, creating and validating virtual models based on real-world data and situations. However, the revolution that overthrows this with 'Sim to Real' is at the heart of DT.
A fundamental change in how we recognize and overcome problems
POLLUX's 'Sim to Real' transition connects with the philosophies of Nietzsche and Warhol. Nietzsche's proposed collapse of existing value systems and possibilities for creating new values, along with Warhol's exploration of the blurred boundaries between originals and copies, are deeply connected to the process of digital twin technology breaking down boundaries between real and virtual to create new realities. This subversion succeeds in making a fundamental leap beyond mere technological progress in how we recognize and overcome problems.
from cloning to Generation
Ultimately, POLLUX's 'Sim to Real' transition reinterprets Nietzsche and Warhol's ideas in the context of modern technology, opening up new possibilities for interaction between technology and humans. This means technology acquires the power not just to reflect and mimic the real world but to improve and recreate it. Therefore, digital twin technology will continuously spark exploration and discussion about how it redefines the relationship between humans and technology in future society and how it will transform our lives.
Human-centered technological development
This technological and philosophical shift raises fundamental questions about how we imagine and implement the future, playing an important role in creating a better world through human creativity and innovation. This emphasizes human-centered development. Technology becomes an important means to improve human quality of life, solve everyday problems, and build a sustainable future. Human creativity and innovation must be central as digital twin technology transcends the boundaries between real and virtual to recreate reality. Technology should be formed and used according to human intentions and purposes, creating a more inclusive and sustainable future.
Digital Objects: The Beginning of a Journey to Digitize Assets
Object structure model design - Object behavior model design - Object shape model design
Lumped Model
This is a model created through 3D CAD design during the design stage of an object's behavior model. We call this a lumped model. The lumped model only models the core of the object's structure.
The lumped model born through 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) implants Kinematics into virtual objects.
The Lumped Model is designed to match the core and purpose of the real entity's actual structure. There's no need to spend unnecessary costs and time to model all structural elements. In other words, structural modeling is done only as much as needed. Therefore, the structure is modeled simply according to the defined purpose and core.
This is the first step toward digital engineering.
Through this process, the object has the same scale as the physical twin's length and measurement. This doesn't consider the causes of motion, forces, and mass. It considers the work space, link positions, and the mechanism's singularity points. This is closely related to the mechanism's purpose, and now the virtual object has joints, collision properties, materials, and mass.
Cheshire Cat Model
The 'Cheshire Cat' is a fictional cat from Lewis Carroll's children's novel 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.' We pondered how to implement the properties of objects in digital twins. We found the key through the 'quantum Cheshire cat' experiment. According to the experiment, even without the body of a particle, only its properties can exist, which is why it's named after the Cheshire cat that leaves only its unpleasant smile before disappearing. This experiment identified whether a particle's properties could be separated from the particle itself. Now we can only see the cat's smile.
The Cheshire cat model considers only the kinematic and dynamic elements, not the external appearance of equipment.
This is the process of designing the Dynamics of objects imported into the DT platform based on Kinematics from CAD. Here we are interested in 'How do input torque or forces affect the operation of the mechanism?' In other words, we consider the causes of motion (forces and mass). We implant dynamics and kinematics into the object.
The Cheshire cat model is the first step toward digital engineering.
Now the Cheshire cat model implemented within the Digital Twin platform has gravity, damping, stiffness, targets, target velocity, etc., which have the same scale as the Physical Twin's Dynamics. Through this, we design control systems for the behavior model of the object.
Visual Model
This is modeling for visualizing the external appearance of real-world objects as digital twins. 3D representation consists of shape, surface, and spatial segmentation, and the fidelity of 3D representation can be defined through these.
The Visual Model is both a design perspective that shapes the digital twin and is visualized based on the axis of data composition.
The 3D data dimension represented in the form of points, surfaces, shapes, and spaces has already been widely used. In digital twins too, because physical entities must be made into 3D models, the Visual Model is an essential and clear modeling dimension as an analytical, design, or data model structure. The visualization of 3D representation should be based on a fidelity model according to the application purpose of the digital twin reflecting client needs.
Realistic high fidelity in 3D representation is an essential element for applying robot AI learning and deep learning models within digital twins.
Through realistic graphics, we collect real experience data by training robot AI learning and deep learning models. This learning result creates AI applicable to reality. However, there is only one digital twin platform that meets the high conditions for digital twin engineering.