Creating Cities of the Future with Digital Twin Technology
used to identify, classify and predict the
impact of renewable resources and climate
mitigation efforts to neighborhood grids in
cities, including rooftop solar systems, public
electric vehicle charge station placement
and battery storage. These same tools may
be used to conduct what-if scenarios for
infrastructure changes to traffic patterns on
major thoroughfares, identify inefficiencies
in fresh and wastewater infrastructure and
educate citizens on impacts of civic
programs and incentive programs. This
article explores how the combination of an
open digital twin marketplace, artificial
intelligence, geographic information system
and open data sources will enable
researchers, private entities, policy makers
and the public to take effective and timely
action to reduce the sources of air pollution
and accelerate the transition to increased
renewable energy generation.
associated performance characteristics such
as maximum and minimum load, operating
temperature characteristics, directionality in
the case of automobiles, network
messaging, water and electrons and other
operating environment specifications. The
digital twins feature preloaded attributes in
a spatial graph to facilitate training of
machine learning models. These discrete
twins may be arranged in a virtual network
and communicate with each other and draw
upon each other with spatial awareness as
they do in a real deployed network. Using
such a system, a neighborhood planner may
conduct “what if” scenarios to optimize
conditions (i.e., traffic flow), pump
efficiencies, grid resiliency improvements
and see the potential impact of these assets
on existing and planned infrastructure
elements. Once assets are deployed, the
digital twin platform serves as an
operational tool to monitor and service the
area.
W HAT IS A D IGITAL T WIN IN THE
C ONTEXT OF A S MART C ITY ?
The Itron digital twin concept arose from
examination of the use of digital twins in
smart building energy management. Our
team sought to discover whether this
approach may be used for smart city
planning and management. What if we
expand the application of a digital twin from
commercial real estate to municipalities and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs)?
Would it be possible to model, validate and
optimize sensing networks before deploying
assets?
The concept of a digital twin is generally
accepted as a software representation of a
physical system that behaves in virtual space
identically as in the real world. To create a
digital twin of elements in an urban
neighborhood for example, a library of
devices such as transformers, streetlights,
energy meters, solar panels, EV chargers and
bus and rail systems is necessary. Each urban
“twin” is programmed to behave as its
physical counterpart and incorporates
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November 2019