Digital Twin Technology of Human-Machine Integration in Cross-Belt Sorting System

The Chinese express delivery industry processes nearly 110 billion items in 2022,averaging an annual growth rate of 200%.Among the various types of sorting systems used for handling express items,cross-belt sorting systems stand out as the most crucial.However,despite their high degree of automation,the workload for operators has intensified owing to the surging volume of express items.In the era of Industry 5.0,it is imperative to adopt new technologies that not only enhance worker welfare but also improve the efficiency of cross-belt systems.Striking a balance between efficiency in handling express items and operator well-being is challenging.Digital twin technology offers a promising solution in this respect.A realization method of a human-machine integrated digital twin is proposed in this study,enabling the interaction of biological human bodies,virtual human bodies,virtual equipment,and logistics equipment in a closed loop,thus setting an operating framework.Key technologies in the proposed framework include a collection of heterogeneous data from multiple sources,construction of the relationship between operator fatigue and operation efficiency based on physiological measurements,virtual model construction,and an online optimization module based on real-time simulation.The feasibility of the proposed method was verified in an express distribution center.

Optimal decision-making method for equipment maintenance to enhance the resilience of power digital twin system under extreme disaster

Digital twins and the physical assets of electric power systems face the potential risk of data loss and monitoring failures owing to catastrophic events,causing surveillance and energy loss.This study aims to refine maintenance strategies for the monitoring of an electric power digital twin system post disasters.Initially,the research delineates the physical electric power system along with its digital counterpart and post-disaster restoration processes.Subsequently,it delves into communication and data processing mechanisms,specifically focusing on central data processing(CDP),communication routers(CRs),and phasor measurement units(PMUs),to re-establish an equipment recovery model based on these data transmission methodologies.Furthermore,it introduces a mathematical optimization model designed to enhance the digital twin system’s post-disaster monitoring efficacy by employing the branch-and-bound method for its resolution.The efficacy of the proposed model was corroborated by analyzing an IEEE-14 system.The findings suggest that the proposed branch-and-bound algorithm significantly augments the observational capabilities of a power system with limited resources,thereby bolstering its stability and emergency response mechanisms.

A digital twins enabled underwater intelligent internet vehicle path planning system via reinforcement learning and edge computing

The Autonomous Underwater Glider(AUG)is a kind of prevailing underwater intelligent internet vehicle and occupies a dominant position in industrial applications,in which path planning is an essential problem.Due to the complexity and variability of the ocean,accurate environment modeling and flexible path planning algorithms are pivotal challenges.The traditional models mainly utilize mathematical functions,which are not complete and reliable.Most existing path planning algorithms depend on the environment and lack flexibility.To overcome these challenges,we propose a path planning system for underwater intelligent internet vehicles.It applies digital twins and sensor data to map the real ocean environment to a virtual digital space,which provides a comprehensive and reliable environment for path simulation.We design a value-based reinforcement learning path planning algorithm and explore the optimal network structure parameters.The path simulation is controlled by a closed-loop model integrated into the terminal vehicle through edge computing.The integration of state input enriches the learning of neural networks and helps to improve generalization and flexibility.The task-related reward function promotes the rapid convergence of the training.The experimental results prove that our reinforcement learning based path planning algorithm has great flexibility and can effectively adapt to a variety of different ocean conditions.

Optimizing near-carbon-free nuclear energy systems:advances in reactor operation digital twin through hybrid machine learning algorithms for parameter identification and state estimation

Accurate and efficient online parameter identification and state estimation are crucial for leveraging digital twin simulations to optimize the operation of near-carbon-free nuclear energy systems.In previous studies,we developed a reactor operation digital twin(RODT).However,non-differentiabilities and discontinuities arise when employing machine learning-based surrogate forward models,challenging traditional gradient-based inverse methods and their variants.This study investigated deterministic and metaheuristic algorithms and developed hybrid algorithms to address these issues.An efficient modular RODT software framework that incorporates these methods into its post-evaluation module is presented for comprehensive comparison.The methods were rigorously assessed based on convergence profiles,stability with respect to noise,and computational performance.The numerical results show that the hybrid KNNLHS algorithm excels in real-time online applications,balancing accuracy and efficiency with a prediction error rate of only 1%and processing times of less than 0.1 s.Contrastingly,algorithms such as FSA,DE,and ADE,although slightly slower(approximately 1 s),demonstrated higher accuracy with a 0.3%relative L_2 error,which advances RODT methodologies to harness machine learning and system modeling for improved reactor monitoring,systematic diagnosis of off-normal events,and lifetime management strategies.The developed modular software and novel optimization methods presented offer pathways to realize the full potential of RODT for transforming energy engineering practices.

Control Strategies for Digital Twin Systems

With the continuous breakthrough in information technology and its integration into practical applications, industrial digital twins are expected to accelerate their development in the near future. This paper studies various control strategies for digital twin systems from the viewpoint of practical applications.To make full use of advantages of digital twins for control systems, an architecture of digital twin control systems, adaptive model tracking scheme, performance prediction scheme, performance retention scheme, and fault tolerant control scheme are proposed. Those schemes are detailed to deal with different issues on model tracking, performance prediction, performance retention, and fault tolerant control of digital twin systems. Also, the stability of digital twin control systems is analysed. The proposed schemes for digital twin control systems are illustrated by examples.

Research on Smart Energy Monitoring and Management System Based on Digital Twin Technology

Smart energy monitoring and management system lays a foundation for the application and development of smart energy. However, in recent years, the work efficiency of smart energy development enterprises has generally been low, and there is an urgent need to improve the application efficiency, resilience and sustainability of smart energy monitoring and management system. Digital twin technology provides a data-centric solution to improve smart energy monitoring and management system, bringing an opportunity to transform passive infrastructure assets into data-centric systems. This paper expounds on the concept and key technologies of digital twin, and designs a smart energy monitoring and management system based on digital twin technology, which has dual significance for promoting the development of smart energy field and promoting the application of digital twin.

Natural Disaster Risk Monitoring for Immovable Cultural Relics Based on Digital Twin

Natural disaster risk monitoring is an important task for disaster prevention and reduction.In the case of immovable cultural relics,however,the feedback mechanism,risk factors,monitoring logic,and monitoring indicators of natural disaster risk monitoring are complex.How to achieve intelligent perception and monitoring of natural disaster risk for immovable cultural relics has always been a focus and a challenge for researchers.Based on the analysis of the concepts and issues related to the natural disaster risk of immovable cultural relics,this paper proposes a framework for natural disaster risk monitoring for immovable cultural relics based on the digital twin.This framework focuses on risk monitoring,including the physical entities of natural disaster risk for immovable cultural relics,monitoring indicators,and virtual entity construction.A platform for monitoring the natural disaster risk of immovable cultural relics is proposed.Using the Puzhou Ancient City Site as a test bed,the proposed concept can be used for monitoring the natural disaster risk of immovable cultural relics at different scales.

A Dual Closed-Loop Digital Twin Construction Method for Optimizing the Copper Disc Casting Process

The copper disc casting machine is core equipment for producing copper anode plates in the copper metallurgy industry.The copper disc casting machine casting package motion curve(CPMC) is significant for precise casting and efficient production.However,the lack of exact casting modeling and real-time simulation information severely restricts dynamic CPMC optimization.To this end,a liquid copper droplet model describes the casting package copper flow pattern in the casting process.Furthermore,a CPMC optimization model is proposed for the first time.On top of this,a digital twin dual closed-loop self-optimization application framework(DT-DCS) is constructed for optimizing the copper disc casting process to achieve self-optimization of the CPMC and closed-loop feedback of manufacturing information during the casting process.Finally,a case study is carried out based on the proposed methods in the industrial field.

Digital Twin Modeling and Simulation Optimization of Transmission Front and Middle Case Assembly Line

As the take-off of China’s macro economy,as well as the rapid development of infrastructure construction,real estate industry,and highway logistics transportation industry,the demand for heavy vehicles is increasing rapidly,the competition is becoming increasingly fierce,and the digital transformation of the production line is imminent.As one of themost important components of heavy vehicles,the transmission front andmiddle case assembly lines have a high degree of automation,which can be used as a pilot for the digital transformation of production.To ensure the visualization of digital twins(DT),consistent control logic,and real-time data interaction,this paper proposes an experimental digital twin modeling method for the transmission front and middle case assembly line.Firstly,theDT-based systemarchitecture is designed,and theDT model is created by constructing the visualization model,logic model,and data model of the assembly line.Then,a simulation experiment is carried out in a virtual space to analyze the existing problems in the current assembly line.Eventually,some improvement strategies are proposed and the effectiveness is verified by a new simulation experiment.

Comprehensive Survey of the Landscape of Digital Twin Technologies and Their Diverse Applications

The concept of the digital twin,also known colloquially as the DT,is a fundamental principle within Industry 4.0 framework.In recent years,the concept of digital siblings has generated considerable academic and practical interest.However,academia and industry have used a variety of interpretations,and the scientific literature lacks a unified and consistent definition of this term.The purpose of this study is to systematically examine the definitional landscape of the digital twin concept as outlined in scholarly literature,beginning with its origins in the aerospace domain and extending to its contemporary interpretations in the manufacturing industry.Notably,this investigationwill focus on the research conducted on Industry 4.0 and smartmanufacturing,elucidating the diverse applications of digital twins in fields including aerospace,intelligentmanufacturing,intelligent transportation,and intelligent cities,among others.

From Digital Human Modeling to Human Digital Twin: Framework and Perspectives in Human Factors

The human digital twin(HDT)emerges as a promising human-centric technology in Industry 5.0,but challenges remain in human modeling and simulation.Digital human modeling(DHM)provides solutions for modeling and simulating human physical and cognitive aspects to support ergonomic analysis.However,it has limitations in real-time data usage,personalized services,and timely interaction.The emerging HDT concept offers new possibilities by integrating multi-source data and artificial intelligence for continuous monitoring and assessment.Hence,this paper reviews the evolution from DHM to HDT and proposes a unified HDT framework from a human factors perspective.The framework comprises the physical twin,the virtual twin,and the linkage between these two.The virtual twin integrates human modeling and AI engines to enable model-data-hybrid-enabled simulation.HDT can potentially upgrade traditional ergonomic methods to intelligent services through real-time analysis,timely feedback,and bidirectional interactions.Finally,the future perspectives of HDT for industrial applications as well as technical and social challenges are discussed.In general,this study outlines a human factors perspective on HDT for the first time,which is useful for cross-disciplinary research and human factors innovation to enhance the development of HDT in industry.

Digital Twin Modeling Enabled Machine Tool Intelligence:A Review

Machine tools,often referred to as the“mother machines”of the manufacturing industry,are crucial in developing smart manufacturing and are increasingly becoming more intelligent.Digital twin technology can promote machine tool intelligence and has attracted considerable research interest.However,there is a lack of clear and systematic analyses on how the digital twin technology enables machine tool intelligence.Herein,digital twin modeling was identified as an enabling technology for machine tool intelligence based on a comparative study of the characteristics of machine tool intelligence and digital twin.The review then delves into state-of-the-art digital twin modelingenabled machine tool intelligence,examining it from the aspects of data-based modeling and mechanism-data dual-driven modeling.Additionally,it highlights three bottleneck issues facing the field.Considering these problems,the architecture of a digital twin machine tool(DTMT)is proposed,and three key technologies are expounded in detail:Data perception and fusion technology,mechanism-data-knowledge hybrid-driven digital twin modeling and virtual-real synchronization technology,and dynamic optimization and collaborative control technology for multilevel parameters.Finally,future research directions for the DTMT are discussed.This work can provide a foundation basis for the research and implementation of digital-twin modeling-enabled machine tool intelligence,making it significant for developing intelligent machine tools.

Digital twin driven and intelligence enabled content delivery in end-edge-cloud collaborative 5G networks

The rapid development of 5G/6G and AI enables an environment of Internet of Everything(IoE)which can support millions of connected mobile devices and applications to operate smoothly at high speed and low delay.However,these massive devices will lead to explosive traffic growth,which in turn cause great burden for the data transmission and content delivery.This challenge can be eased by sinking some critical content from cloud to edge.In this case,how to determine the critical content,where to sink and how to access the content correctly and efficiently become new challenges.This work focuses on establishing a highly efficient content delivery framework in the IoE environment.In particular,the IoE environment is re-constructed as an end-edge-cloud collaborative system,in which the concept of digital twin is applied to promote the collaboration.Based on the digital asset obtained by digital twin from end users,a content popularity prediction scheme is firstly proposed to decide the critical content by using the Temporal Pattern Attention(TPA)enabled Long Short-Term Memory(LSTM)model.Then,the prediction results are input for the proposed caching scheme to decide where to sink the critical content by using the Reinforce Learning(RL)technology.Finally,a collaborative routing scheme is proposed to determine the way to access the content with the objective of minimizing overhead.The experimental results indicate that the proposed schemes outperform the state-of-the-art benchmarks in terms of the caching hit rate,the average throughput,the successful content delivery rate and the average routing overhead.

A survey on blockchain-enabled federated learning and its prospects with digital twin

Digital Twin(DT)supports real time analysis and provides a reliable simulation platform in the Internet of Things(IoT).The creation and application of DT hinges on amounts of data,which poses pressure on the application of Artificial Intelligence(AI)for DT descriptions and intelligent decision-making.Federated Learning(FL)is a cutting-edge technology that enables geographically dispersed devices to collaboratively train a shared global model locally rather than relying on a data center to perform model training.Therefore,DT can benefit by combining with FL,successfully solving the"data island"problem in traditional AI.However,FL still faces serious challenges,such as enduring single-point failures,suffering from poison attacks,lacking effective incentive mechanisms.Before the successful deployment of DT,we should tackle the issues caused by FL.Researchers from industry and academia have recognized the potential of introducing Blockchain Technology(BT)into FL to overcome the challenges faced by FL,where BT acting as a distributed and immutable ledger,can store data in a secure,traceable,and trusted manner.However,to the best of our knowledge,a comprehensive literature review on this topic is still missing.In this paper,we review existing works about blockchain-enabled FL and visualize their prospects with DT.To this end,we first propose evaluation requirements with respect to security,faulttolerance,fairness,efficiency,cost-saving,profitability,and support for heterogeneity.Then,we classify existing literature according to the functionalities of BT in FL and analyze their advantages and disadvantages based on the proposed evaluation requirements.Finally,we discuss open problems in the existing literature and the future of DT supported by blockchain-enabled FL,based on which we further propose some directions for future research.

Suitability of SDN and MEC to facilitate digital twin communication over LTE-A

Haptic is the modality that complements traditional multimedia,i.e.,audiovisual,to evolve the next wave of innovation at which the Internet data stream can be exchanged to enable remote skills and control applications.This will require ultra-low latency and ultra-high reliability to evolve the mobile experience into the era of Digital Twin and Tactile Internet.While the 5th generation of mobile networks is not yet widely deployed,Long-Term Evolution(LTE-A)latency remains much higher than the 1 ms requirement for the Tactile Internet and therefore the Digital Twin.This work investigates an interesting solution based on the incorporation of Software-defined networking(SDN)and Multi-access Mobile Edge Computing(MEC)technologies in an LTE-A network,to deliver future multimedia applications over the Tactile Internet while overcoming the QoS challenges.Several network scenarios were designed and simulated using Riverbed modeler and the performance was evaluated using several time-related Key Performance Indicators(KPIs)such as throughput,End-2-End(E2E)delay,and jitter.The best scenario possible is clearly the one integrating MEC and SDN approaches,where the overall delay,jitter,and throughput for haptics-attained 2 ms,0.01 ms,and 1000 packets per second.The results obtained give clear evidence that the integration of,both SDN and MEC,in LTE-A indicates performance improvement,and fulfills the standard requirements in terms of the above KPIs,for realizing a Digital Twin/Tactile Internet-based system.

Survey on digital twins for Internet of Vehicles:Fundamentals,challenges,and opportunities

As autonomous vehicles and the other supporting infrastructures(e.g.,smart cities and intelligent transportation systems)become more commonplace,the Internet of Vehicles(IoV)is getting increasingly prevalent.There have been attempts to utilize Digital Twins(DTs)to facilitate the design,evaluation,and deployment of IoV-based systems,for example by supporting high-fidelity modeling,real-time monitoring,and advanced predictive capabilities.However,the literature review undertaken in this paper suggests that integrating DTs into IoV-based system design and deployment remains an understudied topic.In addition,this paper explains how DTs can benefit IoV system designers and implementers,as well as describes several challenges and opportunities for future researchers.

Analyzing topics in social media for improving digital twinning based product development

Digital twinning enables manufacturers to create digital representations of physical entities,thus implementing virtual simulations for product development.Previous efforts of digital twinning neglect the decisive consumer feedback in product development stages,failing to cover the gap between physical and digital spaces.This work mines real-world consumer feedbacks through social media topics,which is significant to product development.We specifically analyze the prevalent time of a product topic,giving an insight into both consumer attention and the widely-discussed time of a product.The primary body of current studies regards the prevalent time prediction as an accompanying task or assumes the existence of a preset distribution.Therefore,these proposed solutions are either biased in focused objectives and underlying patterns or weak in the capability of generalization towards diverse topics.To this end,this work combines deep learning and survival analysis to predict the prevalent time of topics.We propose a specialized deep survival model which consists of two modules.The first module enriches input covariates by incorporating latent features of the time-varying text,and the second module fully captures the temporal pattern of a rumor by a recurrent network structure.Moreover,a specific loss function different from regular survival models is proposed to achieve a more reasonable prediction.Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that our model significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.

Digital Twins for Wastewater Treatment:A Technical Review

The digital twins concept enhances modeling and simulation through the integration of real-time data and feedback.This review elucidates the foundational elements of digital twins,covering their concept,entities,domains,and key technologies.More specifically,we investigate the transformative potential of digital twins for the wastewater treatment engineering sector.Our discussion highlights the application of digital twins to wastewater treatment plants(WWTPs)and sewage networks,hardware(i.e.,facilities and pipes,sensors for water quality and activated sludge,hydrodynamics,and power consumption),and software(i.e.,knowledge-based and data-driven models,mechanistic models,hybrid twins,control methods,and the Internet of Things).Furthermore,two cases are provided,followed by an assessment of current challenges in and perspectives on the application of digital twins in WWTPs.This review serves as an essential primer for wastewater engineers navigating the digital paradigm shift.

Multimodal fusion recognition for digital twin

The digital twin is the concept of transcending reality,which is the reverse feedback from the real physical space to the virtual digital space.People hold great prospects for this emerging technology.In order to realize the upgrading of the digital twin industrial chain,it is urgent to introduce more modalities,such as vision,haptics,hearing and smell,into the virtual digital space,which assists physical entities and virtual objects in creating a closer connection.Therefore,perceptual understanding and object recognition have become an urgent hot topic in the digital twin.Existing surface material classification schemes often achieve recognition through machine learning or deep learning in a single modality,ignoring the complementarity between multiple modalities.In order to overcome this dilemma,we propose a multimodal fusion network in our article that combines two modalities,visual and haptic,for surface material recognition.On the one hand,the network makes full use of the potential correlations between multiple modalities to deeply mine the modal semantics and complete the data mapping.On the other hand,the network is extensible and can be used as a universal architecture to include more modalities.Experiments show that the constructed multimodal fusion network can achieve 99.42%classification accuracy while reducing complexity.

A digital twin model-based approach to cost optimization of residential community microgrids

This paper presents a peer-to-peer community cost optimization approach based on a single-prosumer energy management system.Its objective is to optimize energy costs for prosumers in the community by enhancing the consumption efficiency.This study was conducted along two main axes.The first axis focuses on designing a digital twin for a residential community microgrid platform.This phase involves data collection,cleaning,exploration,and interpretation.Moreover,it includes replicating the functionality of the real platform and validating the results.The second axis involves the development of a novel approach that incorporates two distinct prosumer behaviors within the same community microgrid,while maintaining the concept of peer-to-peer energy trading.Prosumers without storage utilize their individual PV systems to fulfill their energy requirements and inject excess energy into a local microgrid.Meanwhile,a single prosumer with a storage system actively engages in energy exchange to maximize the community’s profit.This is achieved by optimizing battery usage using a cost optimization solution.The proposed solution is validated using the developed digital twin.