INDUSTRY NEWS
Global digital twin market set for growth
Digital twins are increasingly transforming industries such as manufacturing, healthcare and aerospace, offering solutions to optimise operations, improve efficiency and enable predictive capabilities across various sectors. Against this backdrop, the global digital twin market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate( CAGR) of 35.6 % from US $ 5 billion in 2019 to US $ 154 billion by 2030, outlined analyst GlobalData.
GlobalData’ s latest Strategic Intelligence report,‘ Digital Twins’, reveals that the growth of the global digital twin market will be driven by low-cost sensors used in Internet of Things( IoT) devices, a decline in the cost of highperformance computing( HPC) and cloud accessibility. Advances in data analytics and artificial intelligence( AI) will also drive growth.
Aisha U-K Umaru, Strategic Intelligence Analyst, GlobalData, commented:“ Digital twins are employed in various industries. They serve a wide range of purposes from enhancing the efficiency of a factory to providing an enriched viewing experience for sports fans.”
Digital twins are increasingly harnessing AI to provide more context to the users. This approach has created a hybrid technology called semantic twins, which can provide a deeper level of understanding by letting users
Image: Shutterstock. com.
ask large language models( LLMs) questions about a twin and its components. In response to these questions, the LLM can draw from its knowledge of the twin, the twin’ s aims and objectives, and its broader understanding of systems and the world. Semantic twins also benefit from other features of generative AI, including advanced predictive analytics and information retention.
“ AI( artificial intelligence) is pervading almost every industry, and it can offer more depth to digital twins. Semantic twins can allow users to draw deeper meaning from their digital twins, using LLMs for support,” added Umaru.
Digital twins for predictive maintenance are employed widely in some sectors. They enable the calculation of maintenance-related key performance indicators and forecast how machines perform under different conditions.
“ Digital twins act like real-time models that show precisely how a product, process or system is doing. They help us to simulate and predict how things will work under different conditions such as how long they’ ve been running, harsh conditions they have faced or temperature changes,” commented analyst, Markets and Markets, in its separate market forecast on the digital twin market. It predicted that the automotive and transportation industry will account for the largest share of the digital twin market from 2023-2028.
“ In the long run, the lessons and suggestions derived from digital twins are anticipated to generate significant opportunities for innovation and growth. When digital twins are combined with monitoring how products perform in the field, businesses can always see how products are used compared to how they were designed. This approach gives immediate feedback to improve designs. It speeds up product development and lowers costs by reducing the time and money spent on making and testing real prototypes. Virtual models of products or processes also help experts from different fields collaborate better during development. Using digital twins and IoT, teams can predict production issues and solve them before they affect manufacturing, making operations more efficient,” it concluded. n
Intelligent automation for aircraft parts
BAE Systems in the UK asked the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre( AMRC) to help it explore a more agile, reconfigurable process for combat aircraft manufacturing, as part of the company’ s wider manufacturing strategy to reduce the time and cost to make aircraft.
The BAE Systems‘ Factory of the Future’ at Warton in Lancashire( UK) is a modern facility to develop and demonstrate the latest techniques for the manufacture of combat aircraft. The company asked AMRC researchers to develop an intelligent automation system for its factory.
“ Traditionally, assembling and setting cutting tools for manufacturing can be a time-consuming operation. The intent behind the project was to look at ways of reducing the duration of the task so that highly skilled operators can focus on more value-added activities. Automating this process could leave the machinists free to concentrate on the skilled work they do best,” commented the AMRC.
The AMRC designed an automated
process for assembling and measuring tools for manufacturing aircraft parts, reducing waste and reinforcing a right-first-time approach.
“ By tracking each tool through its entire life, the system could make intelligent decisions. For example, if a particular machining job was going to take a large number of hours, it would only choose newer tools to ensure reliability in the process. By tracking each part involved in the process, the AMRC’ s intelligent automation system concept has improved stock management in the factory. The system used different sensors working together to identify components, then integrated that with intelligent decision-making to enable agile and reconfigurable manufacturing,” explained the AMRC.
“ The automated system improves quality and reduces cost and waste through an optimised right-first-time approach. It can be integrated with the automated logistics systems to allow for consistent production 24-hours-a-day, on cutting assemblies that have been set correctly every time,” it added.
The system developed by the AMRC will be integrated into production at BAE Systems’ Factory of the Future by the end of 2025. It forms part of the company’ s broader manufacturing strategy to look at ways to introduce low-cost technologies and automation to improve efficiency. The project has also sparked interest from the AMRC’ s other partners. n
www. baesystems. com
www. amrc. co. uk
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