New AWS Services Enable Digital Twins of Industrial Assets and Connected Vehicle Management

Amazon Web Services Inc. improves its Internet of Things game with the launch of two new services. AWS IoT TwinMaker enables businesses to create digital twins of physical assets, while AWS IoT FleetWise is designed to help customers manage data from smart vehicle fleets.

Digital twins are virtual representations of things such as buildings, factories, production line equipment, etc., which are regularly updated with real-world data to mimic the systems they represent. They are often used to create simulations that can predict the performance of a product, process, or equipment.

“In the past, when you wanted to test a new product, you had to build a physical unit,” AWS CEO Adam Selipsky said in his opening speech.

With the launch of AWS IoT TwinMaker at its annual re: Invent conference today, Selipsky has made it clear that this is no longer necessary. Amazon customers will be able to easily create digital twins by connecting data from sources, including applications and video streams, without the need to first move that data into a single repository.

AWS said the service provides integrated connectors for services such as AWS IoT SiteWise, a managed service that simplifies the collection, organization, and analysis of industrial equipment data, as well as Amazon Kinesis Video Streams and Amazon. S3. Once everything is connected, AWS IoT TwinMaker will create a knowledge graph that will map the relationships between data sources and keep it updated in real time. Customers can also import existing 3D models such as CAD and BIM files to create 3D visualizations, overlaying the knowledge graph data to create their digital twins.

Once the digital twin is operational, customers will then be able to visualize their data in the context of the physical environment that creates it. To do this, AWS IoT TwinMaker creates a digital twin graph that combines the relationships between connected data sources and virtual representations of the user’s physical systems. In other words, users will be able to model their real environments. They can even import existing 3D models to accurately represent existing spaces such as a factory floor. Additionally, they can add interactive video and sensor data overlays as well as information from machine learning services.

The service includes a plugin for Amazon Managed Grafana, a managed version of the Grafana visualization platform.

AWS IoT CEO Michael MacKenzie said the company created AWS IoT TwinMaker because customers told him the work involved in creating digital twins was too complicated and expensive and therefore prohibitive.

“AWS IoT TwinMaker includes the built-in features that most customers need for their digital twins, such as connecting to data from disparate sources, modeling physical environments, and visualizing data with spatial context,” said he explained.

As for IoT FleetWise, it is a new service for customers operating connected vehicle fleets. With it, they can collect and standardize data on over a million cars, vans or trucks. It allows users to apply intelligent filtering to extract only the data they need, reducing the amount of data transmitted. It also comes with tools that allow automakers to perform remote diagnostics, analyze fleet health, and improve autonomous driving systems and safety functions.

Users can define and model the attributes of vehicles, the sensors they use, etc. from the AWS Management Console, for individual vehicle types or for multiple vehicle types in their fleet. Once done, the FleetWise IoT application is installed on the vehicle gateway, which is a communication hub inside the vehicle, so that it can read, decode and transmit the desired data to the customer.

“The cloud is fundamentally changing [the automobile] industry, including the way vehicles are designed and manufactured, the features they offer, the way we drive, ”Selipsky said during his speech. “Automakers are designing vehicles fused with software connected by sensors and systems generating huge amounts of data.”

Amazon said that AWS IoT TwinMaker is now previewing in its US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Singapore) regions, with availability in other AWS regions to come. AWS IoT FleetWise is previewing now in the US East (N. Virginia) and Europe (Frankfurt) regions.

Images: AWS