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On 21/09/2021 at 14:48, Kirsten Lamb said:
@Kirsten Many thanks for all the below. We are encouraging one thought on each post – but your list is fantastically clear and will help us a lot to kick start the first Jam, so thank you for posting.
Here are some challenges that our researchers have brought up in developing digital twins, paraphrased by me, so if they are in error the fault is mine and I welcome corrections:
- The value of digital twins in providing the right information at the right time, so a key challenge is determining the frequency and timeliness of data collection to provide useful, valuable insights to asset owners.
- With satellites, InSAR and other earth observation technologies, a challenge is in processing the high volume of data needed to quality-check the measurements taken in a timely manner.
- In creating a digital twin of a building, existing asset management processes have been established to take advantage of the knowledge of human asset managers and the data provided by building management systems. A key challenge is to develop digital twins that are capable of complementing these existing sources of knowledge and data by adding new value.
- Computer vision can help identify events and behaviours in the built environment without capturing footage of people, making it more acceptable from a privacy perspective. One important challenge to address is giving machine learning algorithms a fully representative training dataset so that biases are not introduced into the resulting data.
- Each sensor in a building or asset may only be able to detect one factor or phenomenon in isolation, but if multiple sensors become networked together in ‘smart’ ways, they may be able to detect ‘complex events’, events characterised by multiple phenomena happening in a specific order, time frame or physical orientation. Understanding how to combine sensors and human understanding into truly ‘smart’ buildings that can detect complex events and respond appropriately is a challenge.
- One promise of connected digital twins is seamless services provided to the public through digital technologies in the built environment. When designing a comprehensive service ecosystem enabled by connected digital twins, it is difficult to break down existing siloes: from a technical data sharing and interoperability standpoint; from a regulatory and geographical standpoint; and from the standpoint of existing processes and business models.
- When designing services based on connected digital twins, it is important to acknowledge the inequalities in access to digital technology based on socio-economic, geographic, age, education, ability and other factors. Exclusion from services or inequality of service provision based on these factors is a major issue to consider in the governance and development of connected digital twins for the public good.