Pretend you’re a student who has to learn how to drive an excavator… Imagine if you could learn the practical operation of construction machinery by placing augmented reality (AR) models of equipment in your room to practice with. Then imagine if in class you could wirelessly connect your digital model to a real-life model and control the Physical Twin to showcase your skills. Imagine further that the operator of the physical model could then take over and control the real excavator with its movements replicated on your Digital Twin!
This two-way digital twin system was the vision of Dr Samad Sepasgozar PhD MASCE MCIOB from UNSW’s Built Environment. We were lucky to be selected as the delivery team to develop the AR model platform and customisation of the physical excavator model to enable the two-way digital twin system.
This project involved 3D digital model creation, AR app development, control sensor programming, customised hardware configuration and network communication. We are incredibly happy with how the project turned out. This is a great example of the future of digital twin replicas for construction sites, allowing real-time spatial performance monitoring and remote control when needed.
#AR #augmentedreality #digitaltwin #construction #education
