LOG6953FE - Digital Twin Engineering
LOG6953FE - Digital Twin Engineering
Digital Twins are an emerging topic in both industry and academia. But what are Digital Twins (DTs), and how can we engineer them?
A new course ‘Digital Twin Engineering’ will be offered at Polytechnique Montréal in Winter 2025 by Dr. Bentley Oakes (Department of Computer and Software Engineering). The course will be offered in English.
This course is for graduate students or researchers across disciplines who are interested in understanding DTs and their benefits, and who want to obtain hands-on experience. Some background in Python, Docker, Git, and other software engineering tools/concepts will be helpful.
This course will present the theoretical and practical principles for engineering DTs for cyber-physical systems. We will focus on a practical system of an incubator (a heater in a box). During the course, we’ll examine the perspectives, theory, technology, and processes for creating a virtual representation of this system, and using the DT for valuable services such as optimization, visualization, and anomaly detection.
Topics covered: Definitions, examples, benefits, and application areas of digital twins (DTs). DTs, digital shadows, and digital models. DT platforms and DT realization. DT components (services, enablers, models/data). Processes and metrics for DT Engineering. Modelling and simulation principles. Co-simulation. Communication and sensing. Visualization, monitoring, formal verification, and advanced DT services. DT reporting.
Parts of this course are based on the textbook The Engineering of Digital Twins by John Fitzgerald, Cláudio Gomes, and Peter Gorm Larsen. Some course slides and material have also been repurposed from the corresponding course at Aarhus University, Denmark.
Course Structure
Each week, we’ll have interactive lectures featuring detailed DT examples from across different fields and engaging discussions. You will have six hands-on lab sessions every second week, which are small assignments to become familiar with some DT technologies and services. In team-based projects, you’ll apply your learning to develop your own DT or DT service. Options include developing machine-learning based services, investigating formal verification, visualization creation in a game engine such as Unity or Godot, or creating a DT for another system. A small final exam will consolidate your understanding of the theoretical concepts.
Winter 2025 schedule
| Week | Topic | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to the course and Digital Twins | |
| 2 | DT engineering and the incubator case study | |
| 3 | Invited presentation and intro. to modelling and simulation | Jonathan Beaulieu |
| 4 | Modelling control and physics | |
| 5 | Communication between the DT and the Physical Twin | |
| 6 | Invited presentation and 2D and 3D visualizations | Pascal Archambault |
| 7 | Human and machine intelligence in the DT | |
| 8 | Systematic DT reporting framework | |
| 9 | Reading week (no class) | |
| 10 | Invited presentation and project progress discussions | Dr. Istvan David - presentation slides |
| 11 | Monitoring and Formal Verification | |
| 12 | Realizing DTs | |
| 13 | Student Presentations | |
| 14 | Course review |
Course Objectives
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Define what a Digital Twin (DT) is and their role in different domains
- Explain the processes of engineering DTs, their architecture, and components
- Understand the relation between the DT and the real system, comprising the communication, sensing, and possible insights/actions
- Discuss DT services such as visualization and optimization, and their advantages
- Develop and deploy a DT service on a DT platform