COULD BREEDING A ‘DIGITAL TWIN’ SAVE OUR ‘DYING’ CITIES?

COULD
BREEDING A ‘DIGITAL TWIN’ SAVE OUR ‘DYING’ CITIES?

This glimpse of the future was crafted by: Matt
Coetzee
and Jacob
Lindsay

In the controversial novel ‘My Sister’s Keeper’,
parents conceive a ‘saviour sibling’ for the sole purpose of producing
compatible organs and blood that will save their firstborn from a fatal
disease. However disturbing this may sound, our cities are sick –
very sick. Under strain from urbanisation, pollution, climate challenges and
poor governance, could
a ‘saviour sibling’ be a remedy for our sick cities? Could an ill, dysfunctional city be ‘treated’
through the creation of a ‘digital twin’ as a test bed to prototype urban ideas
in a low-risk environment?

Testing the twin

A digital twin is a virtual model of a city; a digital
model of the physical world. Digital twins can be developed for a range of
‘applications’ such as products, buildings, a process, factories, cities, and
even people. But the real value lies in the potential of a digital twin to save
its real-life ‘sibling’.

If we created a ‘digital twin’ of our existing cities,
could we contemplate ways to improve them; apply those improvements in the
digital version and then track the responses? The opportunity would then exist,
of course, to carry these lessons over to ‘real world’ applications so that our
reality would be made more resilient, more responsive, and less exposed to
physical, social and economic challenges.

The birth of digital twins is on the increase…

Digital twin technology was
ranked Number 5 in Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic
Technology Trends for 2018, with predictions that billions of things will have digital twins in the
next few years. NASA was using digital twin technology for decades before the
term ‘digital twin’ was coined. They use virtual models to develop and maintain
systems they can’t physically monitor in space, including running complex simulations
of spacecraft responses. What it offers are dynamic, rapid, low-risk, real-time
diagnostic and problem-solving capabilities.

Driving the growing
application of the digital twin concept in cities will be an enormous number of
interconnected Internet of Things devices with real-time, cost-effective data
feeds. A surprising number of everyday devices are already connected to the
internet – including digital assistants such as Siri, Amazon Echo and Google
Home.

Right now, you
can digitally connect to your home heating, your car, your front door, your
fridge… and your heart. These all
provide a ready database of cause-and-effect responses which are the
foundations for the development of a representative digital twin. An
environment is fast emerging that will enable digital twins to flourish,
connecting the physical to the digital world in ways previously unprecedented;
not only device-to-device, but the physical world to the digital one.

Singapore’s digital twin is due in June 2018

Under development in Singapore
right now is a digital twin called ‘Virtual Singapore’. Virtual Singapore is
described by technology partner Dassault Systèmes as “the world’s first digital
twin of an existing city state and will provide Singaporeans with an effective
way to engage in the digital economy. It will be both a collaboration platform
for city departments and businesses, and a communication platform between the
city and its citizens.”

The digital twin differs
from other modelling approaches in that it can be designed to monitor and model
multiple elements and the interactions between each ‒ elements such as
population density, transport, water, weather, energy transmission, energy
consumption, waste management, security, people movements, and consumer
purchasing… all manner of activity in a city.

Our cities can be reimagined
by changing variables and understanding the impact. A virtual twin will help
urban planners and policymakers visualise the responses from various sensor
networks and intelligent systems deployed now and in the future – and they will
use them to make informed decisions, using the twin environment as a test bed
for innovative urban ideas.

Sibling rivalry

The power of a digital twin
city will be in how it strategically uses technologies like the Internet of
Things, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data. Feeding the sibling will be
multiple streams of data, both historical and in real time.

Those cities that are able
to leverage this technology and harness the benefits will be the communities
and cities that prosper ‒ they will become more environmentally, economically
and socially sustainable.

But are we really ready? The
sibling could well become an intelligent counterpart ‒ trying to compete or to
even make decisions for us. And, as with all ‘operating rooms’ where we
monitor, diagnose and treat the sick – we’ll need skilled doctors. Will they be
real or virtual? And, are we ready for them to alter the DNA of our cities…
what ethical framework will these doctors use?

Enabling these ‘digital
twins’ will involve the labour pains of ensuring our governance, as well as
ethical structures, are ‘birth-ready’. There’s also the question of “Who owns the data?” – the government, the private sector, the
digital twin platform, the autonomous vehicle that creates the data, or the
citizen who is feeding data into the twin model?

It will also be crucial to
ensure the accelerating pace of technology does not move faster than our
ability to understand the consequences and plan how best to use digital twins
for the benefit of all. If we can do that, we may just be able to create our
own ‘saviour city’.

Aurecon’s award-winning
blog, Just Imagine
provides a glimpse into the
future for curious readers, exploring ideas that are probable, possible and for
the imagination. This post originally appeared on Aurecon’s Just Imagine blog. Get access to the latest blog posts as soon as
they are published by subscribing to the blog.