Digital Twin Application to Ocean Monitoring Equipment

Integration of digital twin technology into the field of coastal monitoring will serve as a sustainable solution to the environmental challenges faced by coastal communities around the world. A strategy is proposed to digitally twin the motor-driven winch and its controller within a coastal monitoring sensor array. The strategy will allow for improved automatic control and therefore an increase in system performance. Background on the existing techniques of coastal monitoring as well as their limitations are discussed, along with an overview of the relevant structures, components, and theoretical applications of existing digital twins. The challenges of signal processing, connectivity, and managing time delay, as well as the proposed techniques to overcome them, are explained. Preliminary work involving the use of regression-based polynomial system modelling, low-pass filtering, and Kalman filtering on a DC motor plant provided a strong proof of concept for the digital twin of the motor-driven winch. Furthermore, the future work to be completed, as well as the justifications for doing so, and the potential future path and impact of the research are detailed. The proposed strategy provides the groundwork on which future research can be built, eventually allowing for the digital twinning of an entire network of coastal monitoring systems.