UCF Director Discusses Digital Twin Technology at NeoCity

By Shane Klestinski, Associate Editor

 

Grace Bochenek, Ph.D., director of the University of Central Florida’s (UCF) Institute for Simulation and Training, delivered her presentation, “What is Digital Twin?” during a “Coffee and Conversation at NeoCity” event in Kissimmee, Florida, Sept. 18.

 

Jay Galbraith, BRIDG president, hosted the evening’s event. After he introduced Bochenek, she addressed simulation, digital twins, technology advancement, collaboration and partnerships, “and mostly important to [her], making the kind of impacts that we’re making in this community at the national level.”

 

She began her talk by discussing UCF and its relevance in the Central Florida tech ecosystem due to the Central Florida Research Park that provides synergy with industry and the university. From the perspective of digital twins and modeling and simulation, according to Bochenek, those fields are “very interdisciplinary,” which is an important trait. That interdisciplinary quality explains the strong partnerships with the College of Optics and Photonics, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the College of Sciences, and the College of Psychology.

 

“Central Florida is one of the only real communities where you have every one of the defense services all collocated together at Research Park,’ Bochenek said. “You have a solid concentration, and that concentration expanded [to bring] in the Department of Health and other things like Veterans Affairs. There is a very strong coalition of people who have an interest in a common vision about using modeling and simulation and how that applies across their disciplines.”

 

Bochenek described the creation of the future by saying that it requires momentum, the intellect of the people, and “the collaborations that we’re doing today and will continue to do.” With Central Florida being an epicenter for tech innovation and growth, having UCF’s modeling and simulation expertise combined with NeoCity’s expertise in advanced packaging of semiconductors leveraged by the National Science Foundation Central Florida Semiconductor Innovation Engine, the result is a larger epicenter that will help support the growth of the nation’s semiconductor industry.

 

During her talk, Bochenek defined a digital twin as a virtual representation of something physical, which could be an object, system, building, product or a process. She also noted that digital twin technology has existed for over 40 years but “it’s different now. Specifically, the technologies involved in digital twin development are now converging in a way that allows innovation. Several motivations exist to establish a digital twin representation of projects, such as considering future operations and various “what-ifs.” Digital twins allow for a variety of analysis, simulation and optimization of a real-world counterpart.

 

“If we had a digital twin of this room and we wanted to think about energy efficiencies, how might we think about our lighting patterns?” Bochenek said. “We can simulate and start analyzing to make some determinations on how we’d configure a system like that. It’s a lifecycle object… that’s a living and breathing asset that becomes part of our organization using real-time data.”

 

“Lessons learned” is another significant characteristic of a digital twin, according to Bochenek. In building a digital object and seeing real-time events as they happen to the replica, the knowledge gained allows professionals to analyze and simulate for further feedback in improving design and operations. She cited Detroit’s automobile manufacturing sector as an example of an industry that transitioned to the digital world, allowing automotive developers to capture new 2D and 3D data and then model that information back to the factory floor. She also noted military training.

 

“You have a system, and you have to train a mechanic, so you want to take the real system and show how a certain assembly or operation is done, and you can model or simulate that,” Bochenek said. “[Trainers] might be looking at a very specific real-time system, so they can tag that system to whatever tagging number for a certain part that must be ordered. [Digital twins] link things together in a very unique way.”

 

Transitioning into the importance of using digital twins in semiconductor production, she emphasized that such approaches could benefit planning in terms of factory layout, optimizing operational conditions, wafer production, capacity planning, and managing downtime issues.

 

“It’s a way to take all of that information for a very complex operation, start to drill down, and be able to not only understand deeper, but to actually start making decisions using that [information],” Bochenek said.

 

After her presentation, she noted the importance of casual conversation in informal settings as a significant social factor that enhanced the collaborative spirit of Central Florida’s unique tech ecosystem.

 

“Anytime you can convene people over coffee and conversation, it’s about having a much more intimate dialogue about a common goal,” Bochenek said. “We all care about the region and the outcome, no matter if you think about it from a student perspective, a technical research perspective, or an economic perspective, it takes all of us [participating] in these kinds of conversations. You build friendships, and they lead to greater things and greater collaborations.”