industrial metaverse | Realize Engineering

Imagine building a humanoid robot with head, arms and legs from different organisations that will not share the technical details of the products, probably because they are worried about their intellectual property being stolen. The likely result would be a robot that moves in slow uncoordinated jerky steps, unlike those seen at the recent World Humanoid Robot Games in China where a humanoid robot beat Usain Bolt’s 100m record. We have encountered this problem in attempting to build an industrial metaverse consisting of a connected series of digital twins [see ‘Digital twins that thrive in the real-world’ on June 9^th, 2021] that represent different parts of a complex engineering system, e.g., a power station. The organisations that have developed the digital twins or computer simulations are reluctant to share technical information because they want to protect their intellectual property. Our solution has been to develop an apex software architecture that seamlessly and securely connects computer models of all of the parts of the system with high-speed two-way exchange of information – the equivalent of the central nervous system in the humanoid robot. Our architecture reduced the processing times for simulations of a nuclear reactor sixteen-fold compared to current approaches and required one-third of the number of analysts to perform the simulations. The architecture is readily adaptable too; you can plug n’ play with different computational models – the equivalent to changing a leg on a humanoid robot using a snap-fit connector. Read our 2022 paper if you would like to know more or get in touch if you would like to use our apex architecture.

Image: Figure 9b from Bowman et al, 2022, showing simulated power distribution and control rod position overlayed on a model of a PWR reactor.

Reference: Bowman D, Dwyer L, Levers A, Patterson EA, Purdie S, Vikhorev K. A unified approach to digital twin architecture—proof-of-concept activity in the nuclear sector. IEEE Access, 10:44691-709, 2022

In support of the research being performed by one of the PhD students that I am supervising, I have been reading about ‘energy justice’. Energy justice involves the equitable sharing of the benefits and burdens of the production and consumption of energy, including the fair treatment of individuals and communities when making decisions about energy. At the moment our research is focussed on the sharing of the burdens associated with energy production and ways in which digital technology might improve decision-making processes. Justice incorporates the distribution of rights, liberties, power, opportunities, and money – sometimes known as ‘primary goods’. The theory of justice proposed by the American philosopher, John Rawls in the 1970’s is a recurring theme: that these primary goods should be distributed in a manner a hypothetical person would choose, if, at the time, they were ignorant of their own status in society. In my family, this is the principle we use to divide cakes and other goodies equally between us, i.e., the person slicing the cake is the last person to take a slice. While many in society overlook the inequalities and injustices that sustain their privileged positions, I believe that engineers have a professional responsibility to work towards the equitable distribution of the benefits and burdens of engineering on the individuals and communities, i.e., ‘engineering justice’ [see ‘Where science meets society‘ on September 2nd, 2015]. This likely involves creating a more diverse engineering profession which is better equipped to generate engineering solutions that address the needs of the whole of our global society [see ‘Re-engineering engineering‘ on August 30th, 2017]. However, it also requires us to rethink our decision-making processes to achieve ‘engineering justice’. There is a clear and close link to ‘procedure justice’ and ‘fair process’ [see ‘Advice to abbots and other leaders‘ November 13th, 2019] which involves listening to people, making a decision, then explaining the decision to everyone concerned. In our research, we are interested in how digital environments, including digital twins and industrial metaverses, might enable wider and more informed involvement in decision-making about major engineering infrastructure projects, with energy as our starting point.

Sources:

Derbyshire J, Justice, fairness and why Rawls still matters today, FT Weekend, April 20th, 2023.

MacGregor N, How to transcend the culture wars, FT Weekend, April 29/30th, 2023.

Rawls J, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 1971

Sovacool BK & Dworkin MH, Global Energy Justice: Problems, Principles and Practices, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Image: https://www.alsothecrumbsplease.com/air-fryer-chocolate-cake/

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All arms and legs