Artificial and Human Intelligence with Digital Twins
world. Although buildings are becoming
smarter and smarter, we do not yet have
walls that turn transparent on command. If a
building administrator wants to look through
walls, AR and digital twins provide that
ability. In this case, the information pipeline
goes through the following steps.
Always Aware Building Management Via
Digital Twin and AR
With the raw data processed into
intelligence, many options are possible for
rendering the digital twin output. Most
importantly, the physical and digital realities
can be combined for a facility manager such
that they can be situationally aware. When
AR headsets are utilized, the digital twin can
be merged into the physicality of the facility
as a manager moves around the facility. Just
as a manager can take note of physical flaws
and issues, they can use AR to see into walls,
make invisible Wi-Fi coverage visible and see
temperature differences throughout the
facility. While an alert-driven approach
based on defined thresholds would remain
important, a situationally aware approach
lessens the chances that alerts would be a
surprise to a manager. Also, a manager can
use intuition and judgement to prioritize
issues that may fall in blind spots of defined
rules.
Raw Data
An air-handler can have hundreds of sensors
that monitor things like duct pressure, valve-
positions, outside air temperature and
power draw. Traditionally, these systems are
left alone until they break down or need
maintenance; however, that approach does
not consider how efficiently the system is
running and offers little insight into
problems or places for improvements. The
data streams generated from the sensors
can improve maintenance. Other sources of
raw data include thermometers, motion
detectors and signal monitors for Wi-Fi and
other wireless networking.
AI and Analytical Models
A situationally aware approach is possible
due to the advent of lightweight AR headsets
with strong battery life. Without modern AR
headsets, the digital reality of the facility is
only visible at a desktop or perhaps on a
tablet; but even with mobile use of a tablet,
the manager would still have to operate the
computing device as they move about. This
approach is not heads up and hands free.
With an AR headset, the digital output is
ambient as the manager moves about.
Models can be trained to twin the system
and alert administrators when the digital
model does not match the physical
performance. This approach minimizes
downtime and helps pinpoint issues. The
end user does not need to know all the math
behind the model, but the twin can be
crucial to separating important information
from the noise. For example, the model can
detect when the power draw of the air-
handler is more than expected given the
outside weather.
Since a digital twin of a facility can produce a
lot of output, it is likely that it could produce
many visual representations in the same
physical space. A digital twin AR application
that attempts to render all possible
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November 2019