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Stuttgart, Germany, is investing in a digital twin to analyze a wide range of practical and environmental data in real time. The goal is to monitor the evolution of the city and prepare it for future climate, energy or public health crises.
Stuttgart, Germany, is investing in a digital twin to analyze a wide range of practical and environmental data in real time. The goal is to monitor the evolution of the city and prepare it for future climate, energy or public health crises.
The concept of a digital twin consists of recreating, in virtual form, an existing infrastructure, in this case an entire city, in order to study its behavior and seek to optimize its performance and predict possible dysfunctions or catastrophes. Currently, projects of this kind are multiplying as a means of optimizing urban planning. After Asia and the United States, the phenomenon is now spreading to Europe.
In Stuttgart, the municipality will soon be able to monitor a whole host of metrics from a single, dedicated software program. This will make it possible to view a multitude of data in real time, from sensors installed all over the city. This will include water quality, flooding levels during heavy rain, and parking space occupancy on a daily basis. Collecting and monitoring such environmental and mobility data is intended to ensure sustainability and anticipate possible disaster scenarios. In the long run, the metrics should also help the city deal with climate change and future pandemics.
Hexagon, a company specializing in digital reality solutions, will be assisted in this project by Fujitsu. The digital twin platform they plan to develop will help the Stuttgart city authorities make decisions specifically tailored to reality situations and, as a result, to improve the lives of the more than 630,000 residents of the state capital of Baden-Württemberg.
Note that some even more advanced initiatives have already seen the light of day, notably in Seoul and Singapore, where the cities have been entirely modeled in 3D.
