What are digital twins?
Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 7:01 am
We introduced the principles underlying the National Data Strategy on the Data Impact blog in late 2020. Here we introduce the ideas behind digital twins and share some examples.
Last year, the UK government published its uae rcs data National Data Strategy, which it hopes will drive the UK economy forward, by enabling access to new data sources, the use of standards and by fostering skills development in the data arena. The government have also plans to modernise the access and interoperability of data held within its remit.
One of the items the National Data Strategy discusses is the use of digital twins.
Digital twins are virtual representations of a physical object or process. They are used to provide insights that support good decisions in the physical world.
A brief history
Digital twins are not a new concept.
In the 1970s, physical duplicates or ‘twins’ of spacecraft were used by NASA to duplicate what was happening to the real craft. Such a twin helped scientists identify issues and potential solutions when Apollo 13 and its crew were in peril.
Once computer-aided design was invented over 30 years ago, modelling of ‘twins’ developed further, initially existing to visualise what an object could be, once manufactured.
As technology and data capture has advanced, so has the capability to take real world objects and processes and model how they would behave in the real world.
Last year, the UK government published its uae rcs data National Data Strategy, which it hopes will drive the UK economy forward, by enabling access to new data sources, the use of standards and by fostering skills development in the data arena. The government have also plans to modernise the access and interoperability of data held within its remit.
One of the items the National Data Strategy discusses is the use of digital twins.
Digital twins are virtual representations of a physical object or process. They are used to provide insights that support good decisions in the physical world.
A brief history
Digital twins are not a new concept.
In the 1970s, physical duplicates or ‘twins’ of spacecraft were used by NASA to duplicate what was happening to the real craft. Such a twin helped scientists identify issues and potential solutions when Apollo 13 and its crew were in peril.
Once computer-aided design was invented over 30 years ago, modelling of ‘twins’ developed further, initially existing to visualise what an object could be, once manufactured.
As technology and data capture has advanced, so has the capability to take real world objects and processes and model how they would behave in the real world.