Development of a Campus Digital Twin as a Test Bed for Operational Transformation
Speaker: Dimitri Mavris, Langley Professor, Georgia Tech
Date: Thursday, March 10, 2022
Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Abstract
Researchers have been using vast amounts of data from campus operations at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) to enhance GT’s missions as well as address the needs of external collaborators. Now in its 10th year, a strategic partnership between GT’s Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL) and GT leadership has paired researchers with GT organizations responsible for facilities and safety. These groups have granted the researchers access to large sets of operational data and the subject-matter expertise needed to understand them. As a result, the researchers have created a variety of data- and model-driven analytics that support the operational, tactical, and strategic planning needs of a campus community. Along the way, ASDL has helped GT debug its data, define and adopt data standards, and collaboratively architect data platforms in use by GT operators. This work has also made it possible to use campus data for the creation of digital twins, in machine learning applications, and as test cases for model-based systems engineering. These research products have been applied to identify inefficiencies and faults more rapidly, better understand operational patterns, and evaluate what-if scenarios. The work has also sparked collaborations between ASDL and utility companies, a variety of industries, and federal entities, including NASA. All are interested in GT as a platform for technology demonstration and “living experiments”. Selected examples will be presented from studies at the scales of the full campus, individual buildings, and smaller indoor spaces.
Bio
Dimitri Mavris earned his B.S. (1984), M.S. (1985), and Ph.D. (1988) in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech. He is the Boeing Chaired Professor of Advanced Aerospace Systems Analysis in Georgia Tech’s School of Aerospace Engineering, Regents Professor, and an S.P. Langley NIA Distinguished Professor. Additionally, he is the Director of its Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL) and Executive Director of the Professional Master’s in Applied Systems Engineering program. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He is President-Elect of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences. He has held various leadership roles with AIAA. He formerly served as a member of the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and co-chair of the review board of independent experts for the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP). He currently serves as co-chair of the Technology Sub-group for the Long-Term Aspirational Goals initiative of CAEP.
For the past 30 years, Prof. Mavris and ASDL have specialized in the integration of multi-disciplinary physics-based modeling and simulation tools. ASDL’s signature methods streamline the process of integrating parametric simulation toolsets and enable huge runtime improvements that facilitate large-scale design space exploration and optimization under uncertainty. Recent research focuses on combining these methods with advances in computing to enable large-scale virtual experimentation for complex systems design.
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Mary Catherine Bunde
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National Institute of Aerospace
mary.bunde@nianet.org