The DIDMYOS -XR consortium met in person on 9-11th May 2023 in Thessaloniki, Greece where we were hosted by project partner CERTH. The primary aim of this face-to-face meeting was to discuss and define the project use cases and extended reality (XR) applications that would serve to validate our large-scale digital twin enabling technology.
The first day started with HSHL leading the discussion on understanding the specifics around the planned use cases envisioned and defining the XR applications we would need to design to validate the technologies enabling the digital twin. The aim is to validate the results in both a cityscape as well as in an industrial environment.
The cityscape use case will include applications for tourism, urban planning and smart mobility. The digital twins will be based on the two towns Etteln in Germany and Vilanova i la Geltrú in Spain, where our use case partners, FIWARE and Neapolis respectively, will be coordinating the efforts to capture the town. The XR applications would be able to show real-time information from various sensors displayed on the digital twin city and in return support making sustainable and environmentally friendly decisions.
The industrial use case aims to validate the digital twin technology by introducing human-in-the-loop mapping of the facilities, making the process more cost-effective and safer for workers. This use case is coordinated by idealworks whose autonomous robots would work alongside employees to create a digital twin of the large-scale production facilities for a more accurate representation of the environment necessary for all other autonomous robots used now or in the future.
DIDYMOS-XR wants to ensure the technology we create adds value to society and that is why project partner TRI leads the impact assessment task already at an early stage to ensure ethical and societal considerations are incorporated by design. The first day of the meeting ended with planning the first engagements with the project’s external advisory boards and stakeholders for understanding their requirements.
Day 2 focused on the technical side of the digital twin – how to capture the environment, understand the scene from the different types of sensors, localise it to the user and put that together into an XR application that can still be run on portable devices, such as phones or headsets. Current digital twin technology is expensive and requires a lot of computing power to show information in real time – the aim of the project is to make that more accessible and cost-efficient. The discussion led by i2CAT and University of Patras centred around understanding the challenges of integrating each aspect of the digital model and making them capable of interacting and building on one another.
The last day of the meeting involved understanding which technologies are needed to produce which digital twin and which XR application as well as other project management related aspects, led by project coordinator Joanneum Research. We also discussed the dissemination and communication strategy to ensure project results are received by the widest audience possible and we maximise the impact of our research findings.
Overall, the consortium meeting was very productive and left us with a clear understanding on how to move forward with both defining the use cases and aligning the different technologies. We look forward to a busy next couple months as we aim to finalise the use case applications and understand the stakeholder requirements. If you wish to be involved or know more about the project please sign up to our newsletter or follow us on our LinkedIn/ Twitter for regular updates.
By Irma Poder
