Digital twins in engineering dynamics: variational equation identification, feedback control design and their rapid update

Digital twins, as a rising concept in many industry sectors, have tremendous potential for engineering dynamics. Their practical applications, however, are hindered by the lack of near real-time system identification and control design methods. This paper establishes and implements a framework of digital twins in engineering dynamics based on the latest advances in the field of data-driven equation identification. It consists of a preprocessing step and a circular step; the former includes an initial identification of the digital twin (i.e., an integral variational equation) from discrete data captured from a practical physical twin and an initial design of feedback control to intervene in the physical and digital twins simultaneously; the latter includes the detection of system variation and the rapid update of the digital twin and control strategy. Two typical examples, i.e., a Duffing oscillator and a slender straight beam with time-varying force along its axis, are adopted to illustrate the application and efficacy of the established framework, with the different control objectives of suppressing deterministic/stochastic responses and improving system stability.

Automated summary

This paper establishes and implements a framework of digital twins in engineering dynamics based on the latest advances in the field of data-driven equation identification. It addresses the lack of near real-time system identification and control design methods in the practical applications of digital twins. Two typical examples are used to illustrate the application and efficacy of the framework for different control objectives.