Real Estate And Digital Twins

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In 1970, a short while after being launched, a busted rocket fuel tank threatened the lives of three astronauts aboard Apollo 13. (Yes, that Tom Hanks movie by the same name.) 

To save them, NASA engineers on the ground turned to a replica of Apollo 13, used resources they knew were available to the astronauts, to devise a safe method and got them back home safely.

Say Hello To Digital Twins

The re-creations or reconstructions of real-world objects, allowing everyone from developers to government officials to harness the power of sensors, AI, and connectivity to create real-time replications or simulations of real-world objects, networks, and constructions. 

Real World Please

Okay, Rolls-Royce uses digital twins to help it manage thousands of commercial aircraft engines. 

Embedded in all of them are hundreds of sensors that provide telemetry for each engine, including insight into engine health, performance, fuel usage, service needs, and more.

As the engines run in the real world, their digital twins create virtual thrust on servers concurrently, and sitting on a computer alone, engineers can tell exactly what is going on inside the real engines as they haul people and cargo across the skies. 

Digital Twins In Real Estate

Those working with digital twin tech say the pandemic has increased demand for these solutions, particularly from the real estate, town planning and construction sectors.

It’s kind of important today because what the construction sector wants to do is add more and more remote employees. The fewer people they can actually bring to the job site, the safer the job site is. 

The idea is to visually monitor the job site from their home in real time, in this virtual digital-twin environment.

Proof Of Concept?

Bentley Systems, a digital twin technology firm has already delivered a digital-twin project in 2016 - a 3D model of the entire city of Helsinki. 

This digital twin of the real city is publicly available and is used to facilitate collaboration between government offices and the general public interested in the development of the city.