Digital Twin Technology Applied to Automotive Diagnostics

Abstract

There is currently a lot of interest in the area of Digital Twin (DT) Technology. Physical product oriented organizations are increasingly looking for ways to stay ahead of the technological innovation curve in order to not get disrupted by more agile entrants. Therefore, the promise of a technology like DT is alluring for the sake of maintaining a competitive edge. This thesis seeks to explore the potential benefits of DT technology alongside what challenges might be faced in implementing one. To this end, a problem statement is formulated in the field of automotive diagnostics. This is a key value addition field for automotive companies seeking to better manage the diagnosis and repair of their automobiles in the field or the manufacturing environment. The problem is further concretized with a study of some user-driven use cases and needs in a real automotive company. From these needs, a set of requirements is formulated to guide the architecture and design of a DT demonstration. The process of architecting and designing the DT is documented. This includes a deep dive on the modeling approaches considered, the solution space for the architecture and the detailed design and implementation of a DT demonstration from a selected architectural concept. The DT demonstration is then operated under controlled conditions in order to showcase some of its capabilities. Pursuant to all this, a reflection on the effectiveness of the demonstration and the lessons learned about the implementation process are discussed. The results of the study and demonstration show some promise for organizations seeking to adopt DT technology, in this particular case for automotive diagnostics. The benefits are mainly in terms of better system architecture planning and the increased potential for better incorporating lessons learned from products operating in the field back into the design process. These benefits are weighed against the socio-technical challenges of implementing DTs from the outset of a system design exercise.