Is there really another "I" in the world?Digital twin: I am

Produced | Popular Science China

Author | salted fish in the sea

Produced | China Science Popularization Expo

Have you ever heard the story of "The Three Brothers Bian"?

It is said that King Wei Wen once asked the famous doctor Bian Yan: "Three brothers of your family are good at medical skills. Who is the best medical skills?" Bian Yan said: "Big brother is the best, the second brother is worse, I am a three of them, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person, I am a three person. I am a three. I am a three. The worst one. "Wang Wenwen said puzzled, and Bian Qiao said:" The elder brother cured the disease before he prescribed the medicine to eliminate the root of the disease; In severe cases, the patient's condition was relieved or cured with a large surgery or poisoning, so I heard the world, but in fact my medical skills are the worst. "

This principle is also universal in the industry, that is, the hidden dangers are excluded before the accident, which can ensure the safety of people's life and property to the greatest extent.

There is a well -known Heinli rule in the industrial industry. Industrial safety engineer Heinrixi mentioned in his book "Prevention of Industrial Accidents": Behind a major security accident, there must be 29 mild accidents. There are 300 potential hidden dangers. If you seize the timing before the accident, and eliminate unsafe factors in time, many major casualties can be avoided.

So who can solve the hidden dangers before the accident? Digital twins.

What is a digital twin?

One of the goals of Digital Twin technology is to prevent problems before the accident, and the hidden dangers of accidents are resolved before the accident.

In 2012, NASA gave the concept description of digital twin: Digital twin refers to the full use of data such as physical models, sensors, running history and other data. It reflects the whole life cycle process of corresponding physical physical products.

This concept looks complicated and difficult to understand, but we can understand its application.

Aviation engine is an important device on the aircraft. Its stability and normal operation are extremely important for ensuring flight safety. Aviation engine manufacturers created digital twins for it to effectively detect the operating status of the engine.

The engineer will first create an accurate virtual copy of the engine on the computer. Then, they installed various sensors for the engine in the real world to collect data. The data collected by these sensors will be transmitted to the digital twins in the computer in real time.

At this time, as long as the engine is running in the virtual world, the situation in the real world can be simulated. After a long time of virtual operation, the staff can collect the operation of the engine and understand when it needs to be maintained.

The engine in the test cannot be simulated in the real world, but it is not a problem in the computer 丨 Picture Source: The U.S. National Archives

In this way, in reality, we can also prevent the maintenance of aviation engines, thereby greatly reducing the conventional shutdown maintenance time of the aircraft.

Not only that, in the operation of the computer, engineers can also test the operation of various extreme and under emergencies. These conditions may be difficult to simulate in the real world. This can deepen the understanding of the machine and improve its reliability under various conditions.

Where does the twin come from?

Before digital twins, the technology of modeling and analysis of real -world objects in the computer had already existed, and the development was very mature, and it was widely used in various fields.

Digital twins are widely used in various fields. The figure in the picture is the digital twin of the maritime petroleum platform.

For example, in the field of engineering, if you want to repair a bridge, how can this bridge be designed to achieve the strongest load -bearing effect? First establish a model in the simulation software, continue to optimize the model, and then build a bridge in reality according to the optimized model.

Computer simulation technology is the basis of digital twin technology. The difference between digital twin and simulation models is that digital twin is evolved. Digital twins will continue to receive various types of information of actual objects, adjust the status in real time, and strive to achieve the state corresponding to actual objects.

According to the information provided by digital twins, the computer issues instructions to adjust the operating parameters of the physical world machine in real time to achieve the best operation status 丨 Picture Source: Deller University Press

Take another example of more related to our lives. There is a red zone on the engine speed table on each car instrument panel. It says that if the speed of the engine reaches this range, it is likely that there will be problems. This red zone is constant during the entire life of the car.

However, the actual situation is that the use of each car is different. Some cars are well maintained, and the engine speed reaches the red zone. Some cars have a bad usage. The engine speed has failed before reaching the red zone.

If the engine on the car can have a digital twin and run in the virtual world and the engine simultaneously, the red zone of the engine can be changed in real time according to the situation of the digital twin operation, which greatly reduces the possibility of engine failure.

David GelerCER's 1991 book Mirror Worlds ("Mirror World") foresee the concept of digital twin. In 2011, the U.S. Air Force Research Office clearly mentioned digital twins for the first time. They hoped to digitize the maintenance of fighters, and digital twins were their solutions. The U.S. Air Force arranges a large amount of sensors on the F35 fighter to transmit the data collected by the sensor to the pre -established digital models. The model will change with the data in real time to accurately simulate the actual state of the fighter.

F35 is the new generation of fighter planes in the world now 丨 Picture Source: Israeli Air Force

When GM, the United States GM has also made great interest in this concept when helping the Air Force's digital twin of the Air Force to develop the F35 fighter aircraft, and continuously invested funds for research. As of 2018, GM claimed that they had created corresponding digital twins for each engine, each turbine, and each nuclear resonance they produced.

The rapid development of computers makes us have the ability to process massive data from physical entities. The emergence of machine learning and AI makes the establishment of extremely complex virtual models from the night of the night. The massive application of sensors, the establishment of high -precision digital models, and data interaction between physical entities and virtual models are the foundation of digital twins.

Will we have our own digital twins?

Everyone is unique. Unlike products produced by modern manufacturing flow lines, human beings are extremely complicated. With the development of technology, the concept of smart medical care has been put forward and attracted more and more attention.

In recent years, smart watches have appeared on people's wrists. These watches can detect basic information such as people's heart rate and oxygen content in the blood. We sit for too long, and we will remind ourselves to get up and walk, and the heartbeat is too fast when we exercise.

Now using machine learning, computers can judge how our mood can be judged through the pictures of the face; during the weight loss process, you can know how much calories are in the food with your mobile phone; smart watches will record our sleep data the night before.

In a sense, this is the first version of human digital twins.

Smart watches and other wearable smart devices can collect many data from the human body 丨 Picture Source: pixabay

However, for the huge and complex human system, only the above data can not be accurately predicted to the human condition. To get a more accurate digital twin, you need to collect a large amount of data for analysis. These include air quality, light conditions in the environment where the human body is located, vaccination of human body vaccination, electrocardiogram, electrocardiogram, the number of food intake, and so on.

Creating a digital twin that can grow up with people in reality is still impossible to this day.

Nevertheless, people are still confident in the beautiful prospects of digital twins in the field of medical and health. In 2014, people launched a digital twin development project called the "LHP: Live Heart Project". Experts from all walks of life and medical practitioners hope to create a digital twin of a human heart.

A few years later, this project was delivered to the first reference model. In this model, the doctor can reproduce any cardiovascular disease and test the treatment plan safely. Doctors in some hospitals will use it to plan personalized personalized personalization for different patients. Cardiac surgery program.

For some new medical methods, experiments in reality may cause huge damage, and can be avoided in digital twins.

First build a general model. Based on this model, establish a corresponding personalized model based on the information of different patients 丨 Picture Source: Author self -made

As the new crown pneumonia swept the world, researchers launched a new digital twin plan, LLP: Living Lung Project, to understand the long -term impact of viruses on human lung organs. In virtual space -time, we can accelerate the flow of time and analyze the long -term impact of the disease.

Image source: wikipedia

It was once considered that it was impossible to build a digital twin of a complete passenger plane, and it is now a commonplace for aircraft manufacturers. The establishment of human digital twins has many unique challenges today. People believe that the speed of science and technology progress will flatten these challenges.

Digital twins are a complex area with multidisciplinary cross -inter -disciplinary cross. Mathematics, physics, materials, computer science, and biology are essential disciplines. More and more researchers have entered the research field of digital twins, and digital twins have also begun to appear in urban planning, smart factories, biopharmaceuticals and other fields. Another "I" may be in the future.

references

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[4] Barricelli B r, Casiragy E, J Gliozzo, et al. Human Digital Twin for Fitness Management [J]. IEEE Accesss, 2020, 8: 26637-266664.

[5] Glaessgen E , Stargel D . The Digital Twin Paradigm for Future NASA and U.S. Air Force Vehicles[C]// Aiaa/asme/asce/ahs/asc Structures, Structural Dynamics Materials Conference Aiaa/asme/ahs Adaptive Structures Conference Aiaa . 2012.

[6] Tao Fei, Liu Weiran, Liu Jianhua, et al. Digital twin and its application exploration [J]. Computer integration manufacturing system, 2018, 24 (1): 18.

[7] Tao Fei, Zhang He, Qi Qinglin, et al. The theoretical and application of digital twin models [J]. Computer integration manufacturing system, 2021, 27 (1): 15.

[8] https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/99249900

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/digital_twin

[10] https://www.lockheedmartin.com/

[11] https://www.ge.com/digital/applications/digital-twin

Does not represent the position of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Source: Hui Pu

Edit: Cloud Kaiye

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