Professor David WaggSchool of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
Introduction
This academic-led network community for digital twinning will focus on facilitating cross- disciplinary underpinning research for a new generation digital twins. To date, digital twin innovation has been strongly driven by industry practitioners and commercial innovators. As would be expected with this type of early-adoption approach, projects have often been bespoke & domain specific. Digital twins are developing rapidly and there is a need for research to increase access, lower entry costs and develop interconnectivity. Furthermore, there are several major gaps in underpinning academic research relating to digital twins. As a result, there is an urgent need for a research network that will facilitate advancements in the underpinning research for topics such as; uncertainty, interoperability, scaling, governance & societal effects. Delivering such a network with both wide-ranging scope, and in-depth focus, is the mission of DTNet+ to enable transformative change for digital twin research.
Explaining the science
Digital twins are a fusion of digital technologies considered by many leading advocates to be revolutionary in nature. Digital twins offer exciting new possibilities across a wide range of sectors from health, environment, transport, manufacturing, defence, and infrastructure. By connecting the virtual and physical worlds (e.g. by using cyber-physical infrastructures), digital twins are able to better support decisions, extend operational lives, and introduce multiple other efficiencies and benefits to many socio-technical systems. As a result, digital twins have been identified by government, professional bodies and industry as a key technology to help address many of the societal challenges we currently face.
Project aims
Our aim is to deliver a Digital Twinning NetworkPlus that brings together an inclusive, diverse & multi-disciplinary UK-wide membership, with research interests in digital twins, that will transform the UK’s national capability in digital twinning.
Applications
Digital twins are of being developed in a range of sectors of national importance to the UK. The requirement for a UK national capability in digital twinning was identified in the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy published in 2021. In addition to the domain of defence and security, digital twins are being developed for other key application areas including, transport systems, net zero energy, healthcare and the natural environment. The remit of DTNet+ spans across the entire domain of UKRI research and will therefore consider the human, societal, legal, and ethical aspects of digital twins.
