Digital twin platform
Platform ecology is a typical feature of the digital economy. Since digital technology has network effects, it has become an inevitable choice for all digital technology companies to build their own or participate in digital platforms. As a new generation of digital technology, the core technology of digital twins is naturally indispensable for platform ecology, and the digital twin platform has different characteristics from other platforms, embodying the core value of the interaction between the physical world and digital space, and has become a must-pay attention to the digital transformation of the real economy. field.
In 2002, Annabelle Gawer and Michael Cusumano co-authored Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation. and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation), which explains the platform development strategy of the hardware and software industries. In 2018, the two authors teamed up with David Yoffie to write "The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition," focusing on platforms. Innovation, and Power), pointed out that platforms are divided into innovation platforms, trading platforms and hybrid platforms. What was written in 2002 was mainly innovation platforms.
From an economic point of view, a platform is a two-sided market, that is, a market with indirect network effects. In such a market, the utility of a certain group of users will be affected by the utility of another group of users. This economic theory has become the basis of platform strategy, and the cases of well-known companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Google, and General Electric have attracted many companies to build their own or join digital platforms.
As one of the core technologies of digital twins, the digital twin platform is the product of the specialized division of labor in the digital twin industry. By concentrating investment in building a digital twin platform, we can solve the long-standing digital challenges of the physical industry and provide lower-cost solutions for third-party companies to participate in digital transformation. Although the value of the digital twin platform is well known, it is indeed not an easy task to successfully build and operate the platform. It is necessary to follow the basic laws of platform ecological evolution, exert entrepreneurial spirit, and achieve disruptive innovation in the digital twin industry.
Fortunately, the industrialization of digital twins has just started. Traditional manufacturing, simulation, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence companies are still in the capability building stage. There is currently no recognized industry leader. As long as they dare to innovate and have strong execution capabilities, all digital twin companies can Enterprises in the twin industry have the opportunity to become leaders in the digital twin industry.
The value of open architecture
There have always been doubts in the industry about the relationship between digital twins and cyber-physical systems. Some industry experts believe that the two are the same thing with different names. However, after in-depth study of digital twins, most experts will find that from the technical point of view In essence, there are big differences between the two. As a conceptual system that is only ten years old, the engineering implementation of digital twins is model-based system engineering, but the cyber-physical system has been closely related to embedded systems since it was proposed in 2006.
The cyber physics system was proposed by the American Science Foundation in 2006 and was introduced into the Industry 4.0 system by the German Industry 4.0 Working Group in 2011, becoming its technical foundation. Since 2015, our country has begun to pay attention to the status of cyber-physical systems in the intelligent manufacturing technology system, and has started related research by research institutes under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute (the Fourth Institute of Electronics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) released the "Cyberphysical System White Paper" in 2017, which gave the definition of cyberphysical systems and emphasized "the integration of advanced sensing, computing, communication, control and other information technologies and automatic control" Technology", which reflects the core functions carried by traditional embedded systems.
Since the research on digital twins is relatively systematic and mature, its general-purpose technology characteristics have begun to be recognized. Some industry experts have begun to use digital twins to explain cyber-physical systems, including the German Industry 4.0 Platform and the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute. The latter pointed out that "the physical environment such as physical space equipment, production lines, and factories, as well as business links such as 'R&D and design-production and manufacturing-product services' are constructed correspondingly in the information space to build digital twin design, digital twin process, digital twin Processes, digital twin production lines, digital twin products, etc., to realize the digital twin reconstruction of the entire production life cycle process in the information space." It can be seen that digital twins have strong vitality in the manufacturing industry and have become the basis for other conceptual systems.
Comparison of digital twins and cyber-physical systems
The digital twin has been borrowed by other conceptual systems, demonstrating the value of its general-purpose technology, but at the same time it has also brought some confusion to people's understanding of it. The reason why the digital twin can be used as the basis for other conceptual systems is that its own open architecture requires a sufficient degree of abstraction, so that it can have a wide range of application scenarios, such as cyber-physical systems, intelligent manufacturing, industrial Internet and other core application industries. , can be called a typical application of digital twins.
Open architecture features for digital twins
, can be compared to a personal computer. In order to respond to the challenges posed by Apple and other proprietary architecture computers to its leadership in information technology, IBM adopted an open architecture approach and allowed a large number of computer manufacturers to produce compatible personal computers, thus creating a new era of personal computers and giving birth to Intel Alliance with Microsoft. The U.S. Department of Defense once hoped to use the open architecture of personal computers to challenge Germany and Japan's leadership in industrial control systems. In 1989, it launched the "Next Generation Controller" program. The core idea was to adopt a layered architecture, including hardware, operations System, input and output services, presentation layer, data management, geometric model services, communication services and general execution environment, etc.
From a technical point of view, the open architecture industrial control system designed by the U.S. Department of Defense has the core modules of a personal computer: hardware, operating system and platform services. The first two modules are not much different and include input and output services, presentation layer, data management, and geometric models. The platform services of services and communication services are similar to the digital twin platform we proposed.
The core purpose of a general execution environment is to isolate complex hardware control functions, thereby minimizing the cost of further innovation for developers. This is a basic requirement of general purpose technology. If any general-purpose technology cannot reduce R&D costs through leading industry verification and experience accumulation, then it will still be largely a "non-standard" technology. In addition to solving problems, the technology is not transformative.
In the practice of building a digital twin platform, Yiluo Digital has designed a general architecture, which is divided into three levels: digital twin, digital twin platform and digital twin application. The first level is digital twins, whose purpose is to construct digital expressions of the physical world and digital space, which provides a foundation for digital twin platform empowerment; the second level is digital twin platforms, which are mainly based on different industries The actual situation provides general capabilities, mainly including applications in big data analysis, artificial intelligence, etc.; the third level is digital twin applications, which in the manufacturing industry mainly include engineering design, health monitoring, real-time control, predictive maintenance and Offline analysis, etc.
The digital twin reference architecture is mainly divided into two parts
One part is the hardware mapping represented by digital twins, which is similar to the operating system core of a personal computer, that is, the interaction under the control of the driver of the hardware. Its performance index is expressed as "accuracy"; the other part is the digital twin platform and Applications constitute the application environment and capabilities. Due to its open architecture characteristics, in addition to internal applications within the enterprise that can be developed on the digital twin platform, external certified third-party forces can also participate in digital twin application development.