The digital twin of the building, the key to smart cities?
The experience acquired in buildings, mobilizing connected objects, and digital twin in the services of truly intelligent uses can inspire “smart cities”.
An automated ecosystem overflowing with technology, plus self-driving taxis, smart traffic lights to regulate road traffic, streetlights that only come on when needed, and sensors measuring air quality, traffic noise, and soil moisture… You may already be familiar with the smart city “classics”. It’s an urban center where everything runs precisely and nothing is left to chance, and where every need has been taken into account and satisfied even before it’s been expressed. Immense amounts of data are constantly collected and processed using artificial intelligence, all operating through a digital mock-up that allows countless scenarios to be tested before being deployed in the real-life city.
In this ideal vision of the smart city, the digital twin – an omniscient pilot powered on data gleaned from the real world – plays a central role. Like an extension of BIM but with a longer shelf life, the digital twin has made a name for itself in the industry and has been gaining ground in the construction sector over the past several years. What’s more, it’s also become a very powerful tool for urban infrastructure. What made it so popular in the industry (anticipation, optimization, modifications throughout the life cycle…) indeed makes it relevant on a building and – now, too – a smart city scale. While it’s not vital for the latter, it has been proven very useful – and more and more cities are integrating it into their vision of the future. According to the market-foresight advisory firm ABI Research, this technology could be deployed in more than 500 cities around the world by 2025.
Some cities have already taken the plunge. In February 2020, Sydney launched its giant digital twin which covers 8,500 km², more than 500,000 buildings, and 20,000 km of roads. It aims to make it easier for locals to get about, enabling them to view public transport options in real-time, check timetables and their occupancy rate. Singapore also has its own digital twin powered by a myriad of data from sensors measuring air quality and temperature, as well as other information like building size, roof surface, energy consumption, and amount of sunshine. All this is used to identify which buildings in the city are most suited for installing solar panels.
While the digital twin emerged in the early 2000s, recent innovations mean data can be integrated and processed in real-time thanks to the Internet of Things, 5G, and artificial intelligence.
The role of the smart building
Continuous data collection which feeds the digital twin and the automated city is closely linked to the rise of the smart building, itself designed to optimize and self-regulate thanks to the information it collects around the clock in the real world. In fact, sensors in urban buildings alone don’t make buildings and the city “smart”. Sensors in urban furniture (roads, signage, lighting, etc.) are equally
