Professor Kari Tammi from the Mechatronics group at the School of Engineering leads the Aalto University team researching digital twins in the European project Machinaide.

Kari, what is a digital twin?

Usually, a digital twin refers to a virtual model of a machine, equipment or even a whole production plant. It’s a digital duplicate that resembles its physical twin within reasonable accuracy.

Benefits from digital twins are huge, especially in industrial product development. With the virtual model we can test and see the results from a very early point onwards. Digital twin can also help better understand the present and forecast future situations.

Are digital twins already mainstream?

Digital twins have been talked about for years and it’s already dropped away from Gartner hype cycle. Maybe even taxi drivers are nowadays familiar with digital twins? An old wisdom says that you better be cautious in the stock market when taxi drivers start giving investment advice.

The quickest companies already have tools ready for digital twins. Good marketing. But I still see that there is a lot to do before we really are ready. At Aalto University we have researched what a digital twin could be. The concept of a digital twin we produced during our first research project has  proven to be useful.

Read more and find the newest publications of the digital twin and communication technologies for industrial use cases here.