Smart Cities Built by Digital Twins

Global cities will account for 68% of the world's population by 2050, creating a strain on infrastructure and services. How can city governments use digital twins to leverage intelligent IoT solutions?
IoT systems will power automated services, improve waste management, deploy self-driving car fleets, regulate energy usage, and digitally connect citizens to successfully deploy a smart cities.
Digitalization is penetrating engineering practices and digital twins are being developed to aid manufacturers in the development of products, machines, and even single examples of infrastructure. Now they are poised to take a bigger step on the development of smart cities gathering design and digital information of individual pieces and spinning them into a whole new tools and platforms allow designers to place their projects into a virtual neighborhood or city and test how they will impact nearby buildings or areas. At the same time, structural mechanical and electrical details of single buildings or infrastructure can be isolated or analyzed for performance and placement. It is happening now. ABI Research reported that by 2025, some 500 cities around the world will be using some sort of urban twin up from just a handful now. They're being used to replicate buildings and their systems and operations, infrastructures such as highways, Surface Transportation patterns, and pretty much everything that comprises an urban neighborhood, town or city.
A digital twin is a virtual replica of physical buildings and infrastructure assets connected to the data in and around. And they are used for specifically in the built environment for the purposes of optimizing, designing, planning, construction, and an ongoing operation of assets over their lifecycle.
Data is the fuel that drives their development. The more there is, the better the model, digital twins have developed faster in the manufacturing and aerospace industries. But creating them for urban use, takes this to the next step.
Singapore was one of the first cities to create a 3D interactive model of the entire city and island based on topographical and real time dynamic data. Detailed information, including texture, material representation of geometrical objects and terrain are incorporated through 3D modeling. building models include its geometry together with walls, floors, ceilings, mechanical systems, and the type of composition of its building material. data was gathered using laser scanners deployed by drones from above and surface vehicles below. But the model also includes static, dynamic and real time city data such as demographics, pedestrian, and vehicular movement and climate. The model allows planners to virtually test new systems such as 5g deployment over a defined area and identify improvements before installation. It can be used to simulate pedestrian movements in case of emergencies based on building and infrastructure data. And it's an ideal platform to develop simulation and modeling of the effects of weather or noise in a neighborhood or the greater city.
Deep learning and artificial intelligence, help tie computer vision to a natural language processing capability that takes the real world as we interpret it, and adds a layer of knowledge and understanding.
The Smart City is on the horizon, and the digital twin is the tool that will bring smart cities from the drawing board to life. Engineers have only started to scratch the surface of what is possible. But with the power of simulation, there is no predicting how far the city limits will reach
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