Creating an open digital twin framework to unlock 5G smart city revenues
Building smart cities is complex, requires large investment and monetization opportunities can be difficult to identify. A new proof of concept Catalyst project, Open digital twin framework for smart city ecosystem, is designed to help communications service providers (CSPs) enter the smart city market in the leadership role of a smart city operator by using an open digital twin framework to facilitate and orchestrate a standardized smart city ecosystem.
20 Sep 2021
Creating an open digital twin framework to unlock 5G smart city revenues
Building smart cities is complex, requires hefty investment and monetization opportunities can be difficult to identify. A new proof of concept Catalyst project, Open digital twin framework for smart city ecosystem, is designed to help communications service providers (CSPs) enter the smart city market in the leadership role of a smart city operator by using an open digital twin framework to facilitate and orchestrate a standardized smart city ecosystem.
Constructing smart city infrastructure requires large upfront investment. However, business models are still evolving and monetization opportunities remain unclear. The digital twin approach enables collaboration between partners involved in smart city planning, application development and construction, but there are challenges in implementing a digital twin-based smart city.
The main problem is the siloed nature of city management. Data about different aspects of city life are collected separately, often in incompatible formats by various city agencies. Those agencies could also develop their own digital twins using proprietary software and data models, which undermines any attempt to use a digital twin approach for the entire city.
This is important because say a fire breaks out, information is needed as quickly as possible about its location, how big it is, how fast it is spreading, which way the wind is blowing, where people are in the area and their escape routes and more. Pulling this information together on-demand can only be achieved using a city’s digital twin of a city, hosted on an open platform that supports data from all aspects of the city, and also enables co-construction, co-sharing and co-governance.
Strong position
CSPs are in a strong position to operate this platform and overcome data siloes as they manage the public 5G infrastructure that carries data between IoT devices and the cloud. China’s telcos are already working with more than 30 cities to deliver smart city solutions and want to unify these solutions hence China Mobile, China Telecommunications and China Unicom are championing this Catalyst.
Constructing smart city infrastructure requires large upfront investment. However, business models are still evolving and monetization opportunities remain unclear. The digital twin approach enables collaboration between partners involved in smart city planning, application development and construction, but there are challenges in implementing a digital twin-based smart city.
The main problem is the siloed nature of city management. Data about different aspects of city life are collected separately, often in incompatible formats by various city agencies. Those agencies could also develop their own digital twins using proprietary software and data models, which undermines any attempt to use a digital twin approach for the entire city.
This is important because say a fire breaks out, information is needed as quickly as possible about its location, how big it is, how fast it is spreading, which way the wind is blowing, where people are in the area and their escape routes and more. Pulling this information together on-demand can only be achieved using a city’s digital twin of a city, hosted on an open platform that supports data from all aspects of the city, and also enables co-construction, co-sharing and co-governance.
Strong position
CSPs are in a strong position to operate this platform and overcome data siloes as they manage the public 5G infrastructure that carries data between IoT devices and the cloud. China’s telcos are already working with more than 30 cities to deliver smart city solutions and want to unify these solutions hence China Mobile, China Telecommunications and China Unicom are championing this Catalyst.
The Catalyst’s aim is to build an open digital twin DevOps platform (see schematic above) to enable the Agile development of standard digital twin services by all sectors, such as the spatial twin from GIS vendor, vehicle twin from automaker, buildings twin from real estate and so on. This platform could become a virtual meeting point for multi-stakeholder groups within the smart city and augment co-development and collaboration among stakeholders.
The smart city operator could leverage various digital twin services to orchestrate use cases in any number of different scenarios: On top of discrete digital twins developed by diverse industry experts, city operators can easily create the integrated operation center (IOC) for their specific smart city based on digital twin services.
To these ends, the Catalyst team has defined the Open Digital Twin Framework (download the white paper), a reference software architecture for smart city operation. that describes the digital model, function and interactions of its physical entity. It categorizes the common functions that a digital twin should implement and classifies the intelligent data model that a digital twin can build.
The goal of the Framework is to provide an integrated object framework for developers to build domain-specific digital twins with interoperability for agile solution development in 5G enabled smart city. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and AsiaInfo are working with specialist partners to deliver industry-specific solutions for five use cases which support United Nations’ sustainability goals.
They include SmartEarth Technologies which specializes in water utility management, and IS Communications which specializes in helping regeneration partnerships exploit the potential of ICT for economic regeneration and social inclusion.
The smart city operator could leverage various digital twin services to orchestrate use cases in any number of different scenarios: On top of discrete digital twins developed by diverse industry experts, city operators can easily create the integrated operation center (IOC) for their specific smart city based on digital twin services.
Open Digital Twin Framework
To these ends, the Catalyst team has defined the Open Digital Twin Framework (download the white paper), a reference software architecture for smart city operation. that describes the digital model, function and interactions of its physical entity. It categorizes the common functions that a digital twin should implement and classifies the intelligent data model that a digital twin can build.
The goal of the Framework is to provide an integrated object framework for developers to build domain-specific digital twins with interoperability for agile solution development in 5G enabled smart city. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and AsiaInfo are working with specialist partners to deliver industry-specific solutions for five use cases which support United Nations’ sustainability goals.
They include SmartEarth Technologies which specializes in water utility management, and IS Communications which specializes in helping regeneration partnerships exploit the potential of ICT for economic regeneration and social inclusion.
The five use cases in the Catalyst are:
Input into the design
To design the Open Digital Twin Framework, the Catalyst team used TM Forum’s Open Digital Framework (ODA) – specifically the ODA Fundamentals, ODA Functional Architecture and ODA User Stories and Use Cases. It also drew on the Digital Business Ecosystem Fundamentals, the Digital Maturity Model, and City as a Platform Architecture and Supporting Capabilities, plus the Smart City Operations Map.
All the scenarios leverage city digital twins to observe, analyze, predict, make data-driven decisions and act to support the sustainable development of enterprises and society.
The proof of concept builds on work done in a number of previous Catalysts:
The aim is for the Open Digital Twin Framework for smart city development and operation to greatly the reduce cost of building industry-specific digital twins, and enhance the agility and usability to deliver solutions for various smart city scenarios in timely manner to achieve sustainable development goals.
The Catalyst team was invited by the standards organization IEC to present this solution at the 2021 Virtual Forum for CIM and Urban Digital Twin in June 2021.
You can also watch the team talking about the Catalyst here.
- Shanghai – smart community management for sustainable cities and communities through device twins
- Tianjin – smart flood control and drought relief for climate action with reservoir twins
- Tianjin – smart chemical industrial park for responsible consumption and production using digital twins of products
- Hangzhou – smart communication assurance for industry, innovation and infrastructure through a network twin
- Wuhan – smart medical monitoring through real-time health monitoring by digital twins of patients.
Input into the design
To design the Open Digital Twin Framework, the Catalyst team used TM Forum’s Open Digital Framework (ODA) – specifically the ODA Fundamentals, ODA Functional Architecture and ODA User Stories and Use Cases. It also drew on the Digital Business Ecosystem Fundamentals, the Digital Maturity Model, and City as a Platform Architecture and Supporting Capabilities, plus the Smart City Operations Map.
All the scenarios leverage city digital twins to observe, analyze, predict, make data-driven decisions and act to support the sustainable development of enterprises and society.
The proof of concept builds on work done in a number of previous Catalysts:
- Phoenix Tree – a centralized big data Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) from 2019
- Trusted data sharing for smart emergency management (2019)
- Inception – digital twins for 5G network infrastructure-sharing
The aim is for the Open Digital Twin Framework for smart city development and operation to greatly the reduce cost of building industry-specific digital twins, and enhance the agility and usability to deliver solutions for various smart city scenarios in timely manner to achieve sustainable development goals.
The Catalyst team was invited by the standards organization IEC to present this solution at the 2021 Virtual Forum for CIM and Urban Digital Twin in June 2021.
You can also watch the team talking about the Catalyst here.
