Watch 03 Digital Twin: China, the United States, Germany, who is hotter?
At present, digital twins are very hot in China, and almost all relevant conferences have digital twin exchanges and reports, resulting in the feeling that digital twins are more concerned in China, but less concerned in the international community. This paper attempts to analyze the current situation of digital twin research from the quantitative aspect, and analyze the international research status of digital twin for domestic counterparts and interested experts and scholars reference. As shown in the chart, Germany, the United States and China are among the top three countries in terms of the number of digital twin papers published in the past three years. From the perspective of time dimension, the research on digital twins in China, the United States and Germany can be divided into the following three stages:
(1) Before 2016, the concept of digital twin was born in the 8502-BI-DP United States, and the United States was also the first country to carry out digital twin research and application. The total number of papers published in the United States in a single year from 2011 to 2016 ranked first in the world, and the total number of cumulative publications before 2016 ranked first in the world. In the early days, research institutions represented by NASA and the US Air Force Research Laboratory mainly applied digital twins to aerospace health monitoring, operation and maintenance, and life prediction. In recent years, Georgia Institute of Technology, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Pennsylvania State University and other research institutions have carried out application exploration in smart factories, smart cities, 3D printing and other aspects. As of December 31, 2019, the United States ranked second in the world in the total number of digital twin articles published.
(2) In 2017-2018, Germany’s counter-surpassing Industry 4.0 is a development direction or strategy, 8502-BI-DP and after Germany proposed Industry 4.0, it has been demonstrating and seeking enabling technologies that can make Industry 4.0 land. Digital twins are easier to implement than other concepts, which is precisely in line with the needs of German Industry 4.0. Sauer of the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, one of the main proposers of Industry 4.0, pointed out that digital twins are the key technologies of Industry 4.0. The main promoters and implementors of Industry 4.0, represented by Siemens and RWTH Aachen University, have carried out a large number of digital twin research and practice, and published a large number of digital twin articles, among which RWTH Aachen University ranks first in the world in the number of publications, and Siemens ranks third. The total number of digital twin articles published in Germany in a single year from 2017 to 2019 ranked first in the world, and as of December 31, 2019, the total number of articles published has ranked first in the world.
(3) In 2019, China caught up Compared with the United States and Germany, the research and attention of digital twins in China was relatively late. “Digital Twin Workshop,” published in the journal Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems in January 2017: The paper “A new model of future workshop operation” has attracted the attention of domestic academic circles, especially young scholars, to digital twins. 12 domestic universities jointly initiated and held the “First Academic Conference on Digital Twins and Intelligent Manufacturing Services” in Beihang in July 2017, and a large number of university scholars began to pay attention to the research and application of digital twins in manufacturing.
After the meeting, 22 authors from 15 units jointly published the theory of “Digital twin and its Application Exploration” in the journal Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems in January 2018, and more university scholars began to pay attention to digital twin. On the other hand, 8502-BI-DP with the special implementation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s “Intelligent manufacturing comprehensive standardization and new model application” and “Industrial Internet Innovation and Development Project”, and the Ministry of Science and Technology’s “Network collaborative manufacturing and smart factory” at the national level, it has strongly promoted the development of digital twins.
In addition, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China Institute of Electronic Technology Standardization, CCID Information Industry (Group) Co., LTD., e-works Digital Enterprise Network, Toward Intelligence Research Institute, Anshi Asia Pacific Technology Co., LTD., Shanghai Youya Information 8502-BI-DP Technology Co., LTD., Industry 4.0 The Research Institute and its experts have carried out a lot of work in the concept, technology, standards, application practice and other aspects of digital twins, playing an important role in the promotion and development of digital twins in China.
Various factors have promoted the rapid development of digital twins in China, making the total number of digital twin articles published in a single year in China as high as 108 in 2019, ranking second in the world. As of December 31, 2019, the total number of digital twin articles published in China ranked third in the world. Among them, 30 digital twins published in Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems in 2019 have played an important role in the research and development of digital twins.