Today, it is hard to imagine life without being able to use phone navigation, or the ability to quickly find where the tastiest sushi in town is located. Digitalisation that is influencing all the aspects of social life is being rapidly applied to urban environments. Kaunas Digital Twin, which was nominated in the category of “Facilities, campuses and cities”, focuses on digitising the built environment of KTU Campus and part of the Kaunas city centre.
“Witnessing the wave of innovation entering the fields of civil engineering and architecture, we saw enormous potential in these technologies. Digital twin, a “live” city model can be used for numerous purposes: for example, we can display energy consumption or infrastructure in need of repair. If the city municipality wants transparency, and citizens’ involvement, a digital city twin is the best tool,” says Andrius Jurelionis, the Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture.
In various industries, digital twins are used as real-time virtual representations of real-world physical systems or process technologies. A digital twin serves as a counterpart of a physical object for practical purposes, such as system simulation, integration, testing, monitoring, and maintenance.
“The digital twin of the city can be used for simulations of transport, people flow, energy modelling needs, management of buildings and related infrastructure. Part of the data that is safe to make public can be opened to the residents,” says Darius Pupeikis, the Head of the Centre of Smart Cities and Infrastructure.
At the moment, the Kaunas Digital Twin project team is experimenting with various methods to create a digital city twin. Certain technologies are already being tested at the KTU student campus, and in the university buildings. For example, the team is building a digital twin of the new KTU M-Lab Laboratory Centre, currently under construction.
“In a new building, all data can be collected: the locations of pipelines and communications are recorded in the digital model. Sensors can be installed to help monitor the vital parameters of the building while maintaining it. Once completed, it will be an internationally unique project in terms of its detail. The successful solutions can be applied in business or in the city itself,” says Pupeikis.
Kaunas Digital Twin was created using the OpenCities Planner platform from infrastructure engineering software company Bentleys, Inc.
The annual awards Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure programme honours the extraordinary work of Bentley software users advancing infrastructure design, construction, and operations throughout the world. This year, eleven independent jury panels selected the 36 finalists from over 300 nominations submitted by more than 180 organisations from 47 countries encompassing 12 categories.
