A New Level of Digital Twin Design
Over the past few years digital twins have been a very popular subject within academic writing – indeed in 2022 there were over 3.5 thousand journal papers published using this term. Although the concept and definition of digital twin are still evolving, they are increasingly being deployed in industry. With this in mind, academia is starting to turn its attention to the next level of digital twin design – one which recognises how the human works with the technology.
A digital twin is a digital representation of a real-world physical system. Interest in digital twins is growing as the technology enables companies to simulate and optimize processes in a virtual replica before applying them in the physical environment. However, generally digital twins do not operate in complete isolation from people. Based on the information presented within a digital twin a human is often called upon to take action.
This human interaction is a key challenge in the development and implementation of digital twins in manufacturing applications. Humans can act as sophisticated sensors in detecting unusual or unexpected events, decision makers, provide new knowledge and offer adaptations. Operators need to update information within the digital twin and respond to digital twin simulations.
Research considering the interaction of the operator with the digital twins is only just getting underway. The question now being asked is how can we create an interface to enable human centred interaction with a digital twin?
Additional Resources
How to use a Persona-based Approach
Author’s profile
Dr Claire Palmer is a researcher at the Made Smarter Innovation: Centre for People-Led Digitalisation. She is interested in the role humans play in digital twins and how human potential can be unlocked through digital technology. Her research career has seen her employed on several European and UK research projects, both academic and industrial. Her previous role was industry-based, working with a team of developers and researchers to create a digital twin to facilitate the building of a Virtual Reality training application.
If you would like to know more about this research, please email p-ld@bath.ac.uk.
