When we talk about smart construction, there are many representative technologies such as drones, BIM, and IoT, but in today's post we plan to take a closer look at the digital twin. What are the characteristics of the digital twin, and what are the difficult factors it runs into at this point in time?
Source: https://www.wupyo.com
A digital twin is a method of digitizing and replicating a physical asset, program, or system, and in theory it can be continuously updated from various types of data repositories. In addition, the digitized elements are visualized so that users can check their status in real time, which builds the analytical capability to predict and optimize asset performance in advance. To explain using the Carta platform as an example, digitizing what the Carta platform has captured of a construction site with a drone, and displaying the replicated data on a computer or mobile phone so that it can be managed in real time, can also be considered a kind of digital twin. If such a digital twin can be managed well, it holds infinite advantages and possibilities, but creating and managing it involves several important and difficult factors. We would like to discuss how accurately to capture the data, how to manage the captured data, and how to interpret and share it going forward.
The first is capture. This means capturing the rapidly increasing, large, and important volumes of data with high accuracy, and managing the captured data consistently so that no information is lost or misused. In fact, while there are cases in which data collected through a digital twin is used to reduce time and cost and to make good use of automated monitoring, there are also many cases of misuse.
Next is the matter of storing and managing data that comes from various types of sources in a single database. For example, storing in one storage space the many pieces of captured data—some of which may come through point clouds and others of which may be 360° images—is certainly possible even at present, but making it run more smoothly and quickly is one of the areas that must be continually considered. And most importantly, the question of how and where to use such important collected data in an automated manner also follows.
Lastly is the matter of sharing this data with others easily and simply. No matter how good the features and data are, if they cannot be shared easily, their value will greatly diminish.
At present, looking at the digital twin alone, domestic companies have not shown as distinct a profile compared to foreign companies. There are various causes for the preference for foreign platforms, but among them are the better compatibility of foreign platforms with existing equipment and the accumulation of references. Therefore, although there may be no way to perfectly solve all these problems at this point, we would like to talk about a company called Bentley Systems as one example. To improve such digital twins, Bentley Systems uses Open Context software—Bentley Systems' software that, through a storage repository with no limits, can gather various kinds of data into one place more flexibly, and by making sharing easy from any device, is reducing inconvenience.
If we explain the Carta platform in terms of the four themes of a digital twin—capture, management, interpretation, and sharing—it is still in the capture and sharing stages. There is still much to move forward on, but digital twin technology is being pursued at actual sites such as LA Airport and at a company called Airtel in India, and as many things are becoming contactless due to COVID-19, digital twin technology is emerging as one of the core foundational technologies, so we expect that Carta's use of the digital twin will grow even further going forward.
