How 'Digital Twin' Technology Is Revolutionizing the Auto Industry (motortrend.com) 37
"Digital twin technology is one of the most significant disruptors of global manufacturing seen this century," argues Motor Trend, "and the automobile industry is embracing it in a big way."
Roughly three-quarters of auto manufacturers are using digital twins as part of their vehicle development process, evolving not only how they design and develop new cars but also the way they monitor them, fix them, and even build them...
Nvidia, best known for its consumer graphics cards, also has a digital twin solution, called Omniverse, which manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz are using to design their manufacturing processes. "Their factory planners now have every single element in the factory that they can then put in that virtual digital twin first, lay it all out, and then operate it," Danny Shapiro, VP of automotive at Nvidia said. At that point, those planners can run the entire manufacturing process virtually, ensuring every conveyor feeds the next step in the process, identifying and addressing factory floor headaches long before production begins...
Software developers can run their solutions within digital twins. That includes the code at the lowest level, basic stuff that controls ignition timing within the engine for example, all the way up to the highest level, like touchscreens responding to user inputs. "We're not just simulating the operation outside the car, but the user experience," Nvidia's Shapiro said. "We can simulate and basically run the real software that would be running in that car and display it on the screens." By bringing all these systems together virtually, developers can find and solve issues earlier, preventing costly development delays or, worse yet, buggy releases...
Using unique identifiers, manufacturers can effectively create internal digital copies of vehicles that have been produced. Those copies can be used for ongoing tests and verifications, helping to anticipate things like required maintenance or susceptibility to part failures. By using telematics, in-car services that remotely communicate a car's status back to the manufacturer in real-time, these digital twins can be updated to match the real thing. "By monitoring tire health, tire grip, vehicle weight distribution, and other critical parameters, engineers can anticipate potential problems and schedule maintenance proactively, reducing downtime and extending the vehicle's lifespan," Tactile Mobility's Tzur said.
Nvidia, best known for its consumer graphics cards, also has a digital twin solution, called Omniverse, which manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz are using to design their manufacturing processes. "Their factory planners now have every single element in the factory that they can then put in that virtual digital twin first, lay it all out, and then operate it," Danny Shapiro, VP of automotive at Nvidia said. At that point, those planners can run the entire manufacturing process virtually, ensuring every conveyor feeds the next step in the process, identifying and addressing factory floor headaches long before production begins...
Software developers can run their solutions within digital twins. That includes the code at the lowest level, basic stuff that controls ignition timing within the engine for example, all the way up to the highest level, like touchscreens responding to user inputs. "We're not just simulating the operation outside the car, but the user experience," Nvidia's Shapiro said. "We can simulate and basically run the real software that would be running in that car and display it on the screens." By bringing all these systems together virtually, developers can find and solve issues earlier, preventing costly development delays or, worse yet, buggy releases...
Using unique identifiers, manufacturers can effectively create internal digital copies of vehicles that have been produced. Those copies can be used for ongoing tests and verifications, helping to anticipate things like required maintenance or susceptibility to part failures. By using telematics, in-car services that remotely communicate a car's status back to the manufacturer in real-time, these digital twins can be updated to match the real thing. "By monitoring tire health, tire grip, vehicle weight distribution, and other critical parameters, engineers can anticipate potential problems and schedule maintenance proactively, reducing downtime and extending the vehicle's lifespan," Tactile Mobility's Tzur said.
I do the same for IT networks (Score:2)
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When I was a computer science teacher we did the same thing with Cisco's Packet Tracer software designing virtual network environments to test and learn from.
Re: I do the same for IT networks (Score:2)
As a current Cisco training professional we use this today to teach students about network concepts and give first hand demos of ACI and NXOS
Its a fancy name for (Score:5, Insightful)
“Revolutionizing” should be “revolutionized”.
FTFY anyone who engages in a design change without running it
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Re: Its a fancy name for (Score:2)
That would be DOT regulations, not compute modeling
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Pagani I assume? The exception can't be that EV manufacturer that copied the Maserati Granturismo's body a over a decade ago and then made 2 other models that were the same thing with the proportions skewed to fit different vehicle types...the Cybertruck sure is different, but it's also far from a normal or common offering from the brand.
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Well, that's because a lot of cars are designed together. There has been massive consolidation in the auto sector, such that there aren't actually all that many car manufacturers out there. They have basically become big conglomerates with many companies owning multiple makes of vehicle.
And many times, even those makes work together with other companies to design a platform together so one car design
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You can't be talking about Tesla. First time I saw a Model 3 on the road, I initially thought it was a new iteration of the Volkswagen Beetle.
The Cybertruck doesn't look like anything else on the road, although I suspect that was inspired by Musk's days playing Battlezone in his youth.
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Cars look similar these days for these reasons:
1. Aerodynamics. Increasing demand for the most efficient shape possible is driving convergence.
2. Platform sharing. More and more, companies are using the same basic architecture to produce a whole bunch of related models. These all share major design parameters, so they end up looking similar.
3. Trends. This has always been a factor in car design, with car makers all going after the same fads. From any decade, you can put 10 cars next to each other that can o
I thought it was referring to the Binars (Score:2)
I thought "digital twins" design was something like the Binars from the classic 1st season TNG episode...
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False. Solid modelling + computer simulation is just that. Modelling + simulation, typically on first principles. What makes a "digital twin" is that you need a physical model first, and you feed it all historic operating parameters which then define the simulation for the digital twin.
Digital twins often produce different and far more accurate results from simple modelling + simulation and it really only has been around for less than a decade.
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Not the actual operating conditions, but rather all historical operating data.
Simulation is normally done using basic known idealistic equations. You design something, you feed it a set of properties into the simulation and you solve using physics equations. This gets you 95% there.
Where digital twins come in is that after you build said thing you feed it, not the operating conditions, but rather all the historical operating data. You then simulate not by using physics equations but rather by solving to mat
Re: Its a fancy name for (Score:2)
Re: Its a fancy name for (Score:2)
Is this just now taking off? (Score:2)
I was doing this as far back as 2000 using TrueSpace. I designed my entire classroom in TrueSpace creating a virtual twin. Every wall, desk, workbench, computer, monitor, everything. I could then rearrange my entire classroom and lab area around virtually in TrueSpace to get the best possible use of the space. I even had 3D representations of students to move around ensuring there would be enough room in the lab areas to work. This was a huge help when I needed to wire the classroom and labs with Cisco equi
Re:Is this just now taking off? (Score:4)
Not new or taking off, but nVidia is investing a boatload of marketing to think this is never been done before and that you need dozens of high end GPUs with 800 Gbit of networking a node to do it, or else your competitor will leave you behind.
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I can imagine it would take quite a bit of horsepower to virtualize a factory setup complete with working processes but using off the shelf software like Solidworks and other CAD and 3D related tools you could probably simulate small scale productions fairly well. It's been a while since I've done this, especially after Microsoft killed off TrueSpace after buying it from Caligari (which was a travesty in itself).
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We did this for a work project recently using a major automation supplier's software. Even with the most powerful Xeon+RadeonRTX machine we could buy, and a very simplified model, it took 100x real time to run. So I get why NV wants to go this direction.... it's not useful without extreme computing power.
The software is necessarily insanely complicated too and it took a team of high end of people to build (or worse, manage) the models. It was cool what it could do if you could figure out how to make it work
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Not new or taking off, but nVidia is investing a boatload of marketing to think this is never been done before and that you need dozens of high end GPUs with 800 Gbit of networking a node to do it, or else your competitor will leave you behind.
Simulation is obviously not new. However, ten years ago, neural networks were also already decades old. Nonetheless, the introduction of GPUs changed everything, with orders of magnitude improvements in speed and then size that led to increased interest in the area, which then led to new models that after ten years would have been previously impractical.
The innovation now is not that simulation can be done. That's been obvious for decades. The innovation is that with extreme scale and speed, the practic
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What the heck?
I wanted to see when we'd first seen "digital twin" in a story here on Slashdot, so I did a site-specific search - which has worked reasonably well in the past. But now, there are a butt-load of these bizarre product comparison pages on this site which completely swamp any useful search feedback. When did this become a thing?
For example: https://slashdot.org/software/... [slashdot.org]
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I was doing this as far back as 2000 using TrueSpace.
No you weren't. You were doing a simulation. A digital twin is not based on a simulation, but is based on solving historical operating data. If you didn't build something first and record it in operation you didn't have a digital twin. The results produced are different from standard modelling and simulation, and typically far more accurate.
The next step.. (Score:2)
Clearly this is preparatory to hooking up that model to a specialized LLM, and that installing Computer Controlled Machinery that takes it's output as input. But they really need to be sure to close all the feedback loops, so the LLM will notice when things aren't working the way it thinks they should. (If you don't like "notice" substitute "react properly".)
To me, once they do that we'll have a real AI. It may not be an AGI, but it's a platform that one can be built on.
Monetize (Score:2)
"By monitoring tire health, tire grip, vehicle weight distribution, and other critical parameters, engineers can anticipate potential problems and schedule maintenance proactively, reducing downtime and extending the vehicle's lifespan,"
More likely: The manufacturers will use this data to sell more parts, maintenance, and nice-to-haves which really should have been included in the first place. The manufacturers will use this data to monitor customer adherence to subscriptions and to sell more downloadable c
poorly written clickbait (Score:2)
you would have thought that anyone who passed grade school english would know enough to put a clear description of what a digital twin is but no this is the internet
so if you click on the motor trend link, you get, as is now SOP on teh web all sorts of useless words before they bother to tell you what a DT is and then
it is merely a new word for a fancy CAD file
probably has to do with battles over who gets the money among people who sell CAD software
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it is merely a new word for a fancy CAD file
No it's not, do a bit more searching on the internet. The difference is in how you solve the result. A typical CAD simulation is a model of simulated properties based on ideal equations. A digital twin is a model created by feeding historical operating data to the model and solving for it. The results of a digital twin are different and more accurate than a traditional simulation, but you have to have built something and used it first before you can create a digital twin for it.
Ummm how long until the digital twin works ? (Score:3)
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It doesn't. It goes on living with its parents until they finally kick it out where it goes on social services and takes the money of others yet provides no value to society.
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You mean we are all living in a digital twin simulation?
Wonder what hardware we are running on. And did anyone debug the code? With all the weirdness going on with humanity, I think we might have hit an overflow somewhere......
Didn't we call these ... (Score:2)
Oh, sorry, new, bright shiny.
Like Apple II (Score:2)
Twin is Latest Fad Word (Score:2)
Oh yes Twins (Score:2)
Form of Eye Gouging Ice Pick.
Total missed op for DC universe movies.
Mercedes? (Score:2)
They lose 4-5 figures per sold electric car, it doesn't seem to work then.