Digital twins—a virtual prototype of physical products or systems—are making waves in the automotive world, merging innovation and efficiency more than ever into this industry. McKinsey indicates that nearly 75% of companies, particularly in the automotive, aerospace, and defense industries, have adopted digital twin technologies with at least medium levels of complexity. Such a dynamic digital twin, in a form, allows simulation, analysis, and optimization of a vehicle throughout its cycle—from concept to production and beyond. It’s a technology that is making OEMs and many others re-think their ideas of innovation, providing a cost and time-effective method to test ideas, predict the outcomes, and drive data-based decisions. In this exploration, we will define what digital twins are more specifically and examine five important ways in which they propel automotive innovation even further forward.
Understanding Digital Twins
A digital twin is an essentially virtual replica of a physical entity or system, kind of a replica in a different digital world. It’s almost like an imitation; it acts exactly like the real-world counterpart in behavior, characteristics, and life cycle of the original.
This global digital twin market, which stood at $16.75 billion in 2023, is estimated to grow with a CAGR of 35.7% from 2024 to 2030. It could well be attributed to the capacity of the technology to close the gap between the two worlds, impelled through the increasing adoption of IoT, big data analytics, and the requirement for cost-efficient and optimized operations.
How Does it Work?
- Data Collection: The sensors collect real-time data from the object.
- Digital Model: A digital model is developed with the data.
- Simulation: The model will simulate the behavior of the object under different conditions.
- Analysis: These simulation results can be further used to produce insights and predictions.
What Are the Benefits?
- Better decision-making is enabled by running various “what-if” scenarios through simulation.
- Enhanced performance through the identification of areas of improvement, and effecting changes.
- Cost reduction through preventing equipment failures and optimizing maintenance schedules.
- Product development happens in a better way as new designs and materials are tested virtually.
5 Ways Digital Twins Can Accelerate Automotive Innovation
- Applications of Digital Twins in Vehicle Development
In the prototyping phase, engineers can create detailed digital models of vehicles and components and test their designs without a physical prototype cost overhead. This cuts down development time and cost to a great extent while allowing more iterations and improvements.
Automobile manufacturers can also simulate as many conditions and scenarios on the virtual vehicle as possible, which would be too difficult, expensive, or even dangerous to execute on a real vehicle. These may include crash tests, studies in aero-dynamics, or extreme weather conditions. Running such simulations, carmakers will be able to track any potential issue earlier in the development phase and work out a solution.
- Enhancing Supply Chain Management with Digital Twins
Setting up a digital replica of whole production lines will help companies detect bottlenecks, optimize workflows, and estimate maintenance needs before they cause any disruption.
Digital twins can be an important tool in inventory management, as they keep inventory levels at their optimum stock level by providing real-time visibility into parts availability and enabling prediction of future demand. They reduce the risks associated with excess stocks or stockouts, hence ensuring better use of the resources and reduction in costs.
Moreover, digital twins are able to increase the extent of cooperation among suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. Sharing digital models with related data empowers supply chain collaboration and responding to changes more effectively while ensuring the maintenance of quality standards throughout the production process.
- Role of Digital Twins in Autonomous Vehicles
Digital twin technologies are a huge help in simulations and gathering data in the development process of an autonomous vehicle. Automakers can set up virtual environments in which they test self-driving technology across a variety of conditions and scenarios, including very rare or dangerous situations that would be hard to test in reality. This increases the speed of development and subsequent refinement of autonomous driving systems while ensuring safety.
Additionally, digital twins have an important role in generating and analyzing data for AI/ML algorithms. With updates from the real world of the current autonomous vehicles, manufacturers can improve the accuracy and reliability of their self-driving systems. This iterative process enables rapid learning and adaptation, key ingredients in fields such as autonomous driving.
- Improving Customer Experience Through Digital Twins
The digital twin of every vehicle produced by a manufacturer enables them and their highly personalized features and settings that are to be offered to every driver in line with preference. For example:
- Personalized infotainment interface
- Climate control
- Seat and mirror positioning
- Contextual voice assistant
- Driving modes
- Route suggestions
- Personalized maintenance schedules
Furthermore, leveraging digital twins, predictive maintenance and remote diagnostics are within the realm of possibility in the after-sales domain. Service centers can go through data from the digital twin to schedule maintenance at the most convenient time for the customer, determining possible problems before they become serious issues. This proactive approach improves vehicle reliability and customer satisfaction.
- Digital Twins in Sustainability and Eco-Friendliness
It is through digital twins that automobile industries can progressively improve in terms of sustainability. They permit detailed life cycle assessment down to the single components of vehicles, thus helping producers analyze the environmental impact of materials and their associated processes from cradle to grave.
The digital twin could drive component life cycle tracking concerning end-of-life recyclability and circular economy processes by indicating where reutilization or recycling might happen. With this information, it would be possible to design vehicles for better end-of-life recyclability and to further develop more efficient recycling processes.
This digital twin technology also serves sustainability by optimizing energy consumption at production plants, minimizing waste in production processes, and enhancing the overall efficiency of vehicles regarding emissions and resource consumption.
Conclusion
Digital twins are revolutionizing the automotive sector in second-to-none innovation, efficiency, and sustainability. They further every domain of the automotive business: vehicle development, supply chain management, autonomous vehicles, and customer experience management. A more connected and data-driven future means that, hence, adoption of the technology of the digital twin shall be key for automotive companies to stay ahead in the game and at pace with changing consumer requirements and environmental legislation.
Is your automotive business ready to hit the gas on innovation with digital twin technology? Don’t get left behind in this digital automotive industrial revolution. The future of innovation in the automotive sector has arrived, and it’s continuously changing. Get in touch with Ascentt today to discover exactly how our experience and expertise can drive your business forward with smarter, more agile digital twin strategies that set new standards in the automotive sector.