It is often desirable to model behaviors and/or make assessments and/or make predictions regarding the operation of a real world physical system, such as an electro-mechanical system. For example, it may be helpful to predict a Remaining Useful Life (“RUL”) of an electro-mechanical system, such as an aircraft engine or wind turbine, to help plan when the system should be replaced. Likewise, an owner or operator of such a system might want to monitor one or more conditions of the system, or one or more portions of the system, to help make maintenance decisions, budget predictions, and the like. Even with improvements in sensor and computer technologies, however, accurately making such assessments and/or predictions can be a difficult task. For example, an event that occurs while a system is not operating might impact the RUL and/or one or more conditions of the system but it may not be taken into account by typical approaches to system assessment and/or prediction processes.
Machine learning is a scientific discipline that deals with the construction and study of algorithms that can learn from data. Thus, data scientists leverage machine learning techniques to build models that make predictions from real data. The machine learning processes operate by building a model based on inputs and use that to make predictions or decisions, rather than following only explicitly programmed instructions. Typically, such a predictive model includes a machine learning algorithm that learns certain properties from a training dataset in order to make predictions. For example, regression models are based on the analysis of relationships between variables and trends in order to make predictions about continuous variables. For example, in weather forecasting a regression model could be used to predict the maximum temperature for an upcoming day or days.
Some predictive modeling processes utilize several preprocessing steps which are applied to raw data before machine learning models and/or machine learning algorithms are applied to the data. For example, data quality algorithms, such as imputations and/or outlier removal, as well as feature extraction algorithms, can be utilized. The feature extraction algorithms select features from the data, and/or make (synthesize) new features. Selected or synthesized features are used in training predictive models, and the better the features the better the accuracy of the model.
It would therefore be desirable to provide methods and systems that improve predictive modeling results for a physical system in an automatic and accurate manner.
According to some embodiments, an apparatus may implement a digital twin of a twinned physical system. One or more sensors may be used to monitor and/or sense values of one or more designated parameters of the twinned physical system, and a computer processor may receive data associated with the sensors. The computer processor may, for at least a selected portion of the twinned physical system, generate an accurate predictive model for at least a selected portion (or component) of the twinned physical system based at least in part on the sensed values and/or stored values of one or more designated parameters. The computer processor may also utilize the data and machine learning techniques to generate predictive models useful for making future decisions. In addition, a communication port operably connected to the computer processor may transmit information and/or reports associated with one or more results generated by the computer processor.
Some embodiments may include a system associated with predictive modeling of an industrial asset. Such a system may include a database storing at least one electronic file containing a machine learning library and a predictive modeling tools, which may be part of a software development kit (SDK) for example, associated with the industrial asset, a modeling platform including a computer processor and operatively connected to the database, and an output device operably connected to the computer processor. In some implementations, the computer processor is configured to access the machine learning library and predictive modeling tools associated with the industrial asset, provide a model building framework interface (for example, a graphical user interface (GUI) or an application programming interface (API)) to a user, receive a selection of a feature engineering (FE) technique comprising one of evolutionary feature selection, evolutionary feature synthesis, and symbolic regression, provide an input selection interface based on the selected FE technique, receive industrial asset input data and parameter data via the input selection interface from the user, execute at least one of an evolutionary feature selection process, an evolutionary feature synthesis process, and a symbolic regression process and generate output data for the industrial asset, and generate at least one of feature selection output data and provide feature rankings output data. The output device may then receive and present at least one of the generated feature selection output data and the feature rankings output data associated with a predictive model of the industrial asset to a user.
Other embodiments relate to a computerized method associated with predictive modeling of an industrial asset. In some implementations, the process includes a computer processor accessing a machine learning library and predictive modeling tools (which may be provided, for example, as a software development kit (SDK)) associated with an industrial asset, providing a model building framework interface (such as a graphical user interface (GUI) or as an application programming interface (API)) associated with the industrial asset to a user, receiving a selection of a feature engineering (FE) technique comprising one of evolutionary feature selection, evolutionary feature synthesis, and symbolic regression, providing an input selection interface (such as a GUI) based on the selected FE technique, receiving industrial asset input data and parameter input data via the input selection interface from the user, and executing at least one of an evolutionary feature selection process, an evolutionary feature synthesis process, and a symbolic regression process and generate output data for the industrial asset. In some implementations, the process also includes providing at least one of feature selection output data and feature rankings output data associated with a predictive model of the industrial asset for consideration by a user.
A technical advantage of some embodiments disclosed herein are improved systems and methods that facilitate predictive modeling of physical assets in an automatic manner, and result in accurate predictive models that can be used to make assessments and/or to take action(s) regarding such physical assets.
5F is a flowchart illustrating an example of an evolutionary feature selection process operable to select evolutionary features associated with a wind turbine in accordance with some embodiments;
In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments. However, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that the embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components and circuits have not been described in detail so as not to obscure the embodiments.
It is often desirable to model system behavior in order to make predictions and/or to make assessments regarding the operation of a real world physical system, such as an electro-mechanical system. For example, it may be helpful to predict when maintenance is required and/or the Remaining Useful Life (“RUL”) of an electro-mechanical system, such as an aircraft engine or wind turbine, to help plan when system maintenance procedure(s) should be performed and/or when the system should be replaced.
In general, and for the purpose of introducing concepts of novel embodiments described herein, presented herein are systems and methods for building predictive models of a physical system, or portion(s) thereof, which involve one or more preprocessing steps that enable feature selection guided by evolutionary algorithms. The preprocessing steps may include data quality algorithms, such as imputations and outlier removal, as well as feature extraction algorithms that select features from the data or make (synthesize) new features. In the disclosed embodiments, evolutionary feature selection and synthesis methods are applied to generate individual solutions at each generation and select or perform crossover of the individuals based on a given probability. The individual solutions are then evaluated and selected for next generation based on their fitness, as per objective functions. In addition, an option to approximate fitness of each individual is provided, instead of retraining a model for each individual in each generation, which option drastically reduces time-complexity of the algorithm(s) as compared to conventional techniques.
Accordingly, in some embodiments, several algorithms implemented in the Python software language are configured for use by a “digital twin” system of a twinned digital physical system, which may be referred to herein as a Digital Twin (DT) framework. Feature engineering (FE), which may be defined as a process of transforming raw data into features and/or of injecting domain knowledge, is critical to building accurate predictive models for the DT framework. Conventional or traditional FE processes involve manual steps, are ad hoc and time-consuming, and are not scalable. In contrast, the processes disclosed herein enable automation and scalability of the FE process resulting in more accurate predictive model building which is not as time consuming.
Accordingly, disclosed herein are a first algorithm that is utilized for feature selection, and a second algorithm that is utilized for feature synthesis and ranking. Each of these first and second algorithms are highly configurable and permit a user to define any number of objectives which should either be minimized or maximized. Such flexibility allows for injection of domain-specific knowledge, for example, to account for an unbalanced dataset. The algorithms are also fully configurable by a user from a DT user interface (which may be a graphical user interface (GUI)) which enables users to change any aspect(s) of the algorithm. For example, a user may configure one or both algorithms to account for an allowed run time, a number of features to select, a complexity of the mathematical expression, and/or other selections based on the domain knowledge of a problem at hand. Furthermore, the described algorithms are part of a common platform which enables them to be utilized as part of one or more machine learning pipelines and in automation, such as grid-search. In some implementations, the best solutions are collected and then the results are presented as a Pareto Front table and/or graphical charts.
In some embodiments, the disclosed processes can be advantageously used to find the minimal feature subset that maximizes performance of a classifier or regressor, and/or to find the mathematical expression that maximizes a multi-objective goal of a classifier or regressor. For example, the processes can be utilized to find the maximize number of true positives and the maximum number of true negatives, and/or can be used to maximize accuracy and/or minimize the number of false positives. In addition, the results can be used to rank features and/or to generate new features, without having to use conventional feature selection methods that rely on an exhaustive search (which can be exponential in time complexity). In particular, with conventional processes the number of features to choose has to be selected a priory. Accordingly, in order to explore all the combinations of features, wherein N is the number of features in the dataset and K is the number of features to be selected, a user has to repeat the same algorithm N choose K times (which can be on the order of N to the power of K), which can be very time intensive.
In order to aid in the understanding of the evolutionary feature selection and feature synthesis aspects and/or capabilities for a digital twin (DT) framework disclosed herein, presented below is an explanation of what constitutes a digital twin system and/or DT framework.
With the advancement of sensors, communications, and computational modeling, it may be possible to consider and/or model multiple components of a system, each having its own micro-characteristics and not just average measures of a plurality of components associated with a production run or lot. Moreover, it may be possible to very accurately monitor and continually assess the health of individual components, predict their remaining lives, and consequently estimate the health and remaining useful lives of systems that employ them. This would be a significant advance for applied prognostics, and discovering a system and methodology to do so in an accurate and efficient manner will help reduce unplanned down time for complex systems (resulting in cost savings and increased operational efficiency). It may also be possible to achieve a more nearly optimal control of an asset if the life of the parts can be accurately determined as well as any degradation of the key components. According to some embodiments described herein, this information may be provided by a “digital twin” (DT) of a twinned physical system.
A digital twin may estimate a remaining useful life of a twinned physical system using sensors, communications, modeling, history, and computation. It may provide an answer in a time frame that is useful, that is, meaningfully prior to a projected occurrence of a failure event or suboptimal operation. It might comprise a code object with parameters and dimensions of its physical twin's parameters and dimensions that provide measured values, and keeps the values of those parameters and dimensions current by receiving and updating values via outputs from sensors embedded in the physical twin. The digital twin may also be used to prequalify a twinned physical system's reliability for a planned mission. The digital twin may comprise a real time efficiency and life consumption state estimation device. It may comprise a specific, or “per asset,” portfolio of system models and asset specific sensors. It may receive inspection and/or operational data and track a single specific asset over its lifetime with observed data and calculated state changes. Some digital twin models may include a functional or mathematical form that is the same for like asset systems, but will have tracked parameters and state variables that are specific to each individual asset system.
A digital twin may be placed on a twinned physical system and run autonomously or globally with a connection to external resources using the Internet of Things (IoT) or other data services. Note that an instantiation of the digital twin's software could take place at multiple locations. A digital twin's software could reside near the asset and used to help control the operation of the asset. Another location might be at a plant or farm level, where system level digital twin models may be used to help determine optimal operating conditions for a desired outcome, such as minimum fuel usage to achieve a desired power output of a power plant. In addition, a digital twin's software could reside in the cloud, implemented on a server remote from the asset. The advantages of such a location might include scalable computing resources to solve computationally intensive calculations required to converge a digital twin model producing an output vector
It should be noted that multiple but different digital twin models for a specific asset, such as a wind turbine, could reside at all three of these types of locations. Each location might, for example, be able to gather different data, which may allow for better observation of the asset states and hence determination of the tuning parameters, ā, especially when the different digital twin models exchange information.
A “Per Asset” digital twin may be associated with a software model for a particular twinned physical system. The mathematical form of the model underlying similar assets may, according to some embodiments, be altered from like asset system to like asset system to match the particular configuration or mode of incorporation of each asset system. A Per Asset digital twin may comprise a model of the structural components, their physical functions, and/or their interactions. A Per Asset digital twin might receive sensor data from sensors that report on the health and stability of a system, environmental conditions, and/or the system's response and state in response to commands issued to the system. A Per Asset digital twin may also track and perform calculations associated with estimating a system's remaining useful life.
A Per Asset digital twin may comprise a mathematical representation or model along with a set of tuned parameters that describe the current state of the asset. This is often done with a kernel-model framework, where a kernel represents the baseline physics of operation or phenomenon of interest pertaining to the asset. The kernel has a general form of:
where ā is a vector containing a set of tuning parameters that are specific to the asset and its current state. Examples may include component efficiencies in different sections of an aircraft engine or gas turbine. The vector
When a kernel is tuned to a specific asset, the vector ā is determined, and the result is called the Per Asset digital twin model. The vector ā will be different for each asset and will change over its operational life. The Component Dimensional Value table (“CDV”) may record the vector ā. It may be advantageous, for example, to keep all computed vector ā's versus time to then perform trending analyses or anomaly detection.
A Per Asset digital twin may be configured to function as a continually tuned digital twin, a digital twin that is continually updated as its twinned physical system is on-operation, and/or an economic operations digital twin used to create demonstrable business value. In addition, a Per Asset digital twin can be configured to function as an adaptable digital twin that is designed to adapt to new scenarios and new system configurations and may be transferred to another system or class of systems, and/or one of a plurality of interacting digital twins that are scalable over an asset class and may be broadened to not only model a twinned physical system but also provide control over the asset. In a particular example, the Predix™ platform available from the General Electric Company (GE) is a novel embodiment of a digital twin technology (or an Asset Management Platform (AMP) technology) enabled by state of the art, cutting edge tools and cloud computing techniques that enable incorporation of a manufacturer's asset knowledge with a set of development tools and best practices that enables asset users to bridge gaps between software and operations to enhance capabilities, foster innovation, and ultimately provide economic value. Through the use of such a system, a manufacturer of industrial assets can be uniquely situated to leverage its understanding of industrial assets themselves, models of such assets, and industrial operations or applications of such assets, to create new value for industrial customers through asset insights.
The digital twin of twinned physical system 150 may, according to some embodiments, access the data store 110, and utilize a probabilistic model creation unit to automatically create a predictive model that may be used by a digital twin modeling software and processing platform 160 to generate a prediction and/or result that may be transmitted to various user platforms 170 (such as a Smartphone, tablet computer, laptop computer, and the like), as appropriate (e.g., for display to a user). As used herein, the term “automatically” may refer to, for example, actions that can be performed with little or no human intervention.
As used herein, devices, including those associated with the system 100 and any other device described herein, may exchange information via any communication network which may be one or more of a Local Area Network (“LAN”), a Metropolitan Area Network (“MAN”), a Wide Area Network (“WAN”), a proprietary network, a Public Switched Telephone Network (“PSTN”), a Wireless Application Protocol (“WAP”) network, a Bluetooth network, a wireless LAN network, and/or an Internet Protocol (“IP”) network such as the Internet, an intranet, or an extranet. Note that any devices described herein may communicate via one or more such communication networks.
The digital twin of twinned physical system 150 may store information into and/or retrieve information from various data sources, such as the computer data store 110 and/or one or more of the user platforms 170. The various data sources may be locally stored or reside remote from the digital twin of twinned physical system 150. Although a single digital twin of twinned physical system 150 is shown in
A user may access the system 100 via one of the user platforms 170 (e.g., a personal computer, tablet, or smartphone) to view information about and/or manage a digital twin in accordance with any of the embodiments described herein. According to some embodiments, an interactive interface, such as a graphical user interface (GUI), may permit an operator to define and/or to adjust certain parameters and/or to provide or receive automatically generated recommendations or results.
For example,
Referring again to
According to some embodiments described herein, a digital twin may thus have at least three functions: performance of machine learning and generating predictive models using parameters of a twinned physical system, monitoring the twinned physical system, and performing prognostics on the twinned physical system. Another function of a digital twin may comprise a limited or total control of the twinned physical system. In one embodiment, a digital twin of a twinned physical system consists of (1) one or more sensors sensing the values of designated parameters of the twinned physical system, and (2) an ultra-realistic computer model of all of the subject system's multiple elements and their interactions under a spectrum of conditions. This may be implemented using a computer model having substantial number of degrees of freedom and may be associated with, as illustrated 200 in
The digital twin 250 also includes a Component Dimensional Values (“CDV”) table 254 which might comprise a list of all of the physical components of the twinned physical system. Each component may be labeled with a unique identifier, such as an Internet Protocol version 6 (“IPv6”) address. Each component in the CDV table 254 may be associated with, or linked to, the values of its dimensions, the dimensions being the variables most important to the condition of the component. A Product Lifecycle Management (“PLM”) infrastructure, if beneficially utilized, may be internally consistent with CDV table 254 so as to enable lifecycle asset performance states as calculated by the digital twin 250 to be a closed loop model validation enablement for dimensional and performance calculations and assumptions. The number of the component's dimensions and their values may be expanded to accommodate storage and updating of values of exogenous variables discovered during operations of the digital twin.
The digital twin 250 may also include a system structure 256 which specifies the components of the twinned physical system and how the components are connected or interact with each other. The system structure 256 may also specify how the components react to input conditions that include environmental data, operational controls, and/or externally applied forces.
The digital twin 250 might also include an economic operations optimization process 258 that governs the use and consumption of an industrial system to create operational and/or key process outcomes that result in financial returns and risks to those planned returns over an interval of time for the industrial system user and service providers. Similarly, the digital twin 250 might include an ecosystem simulator 260 that may allow all contributors to interact, not just at the physical layer, but virtually as well. Component suppliers, or anyone with expertise, might supply the digital twin models that will operate in the ecosystem and interact in mutually beneficial ways. The digital twin 250 may further include a supervisory computer control 262 that controls the overall function of the digital twin 250 and accepts inputs and produces outputs. The flow of data, data store, calculations, and/or computing required to calculate one or more states and then subsequently use that performance and life state(s) estimation for operations and PLM closed loop design may be orchestrated by the supervisory computer control 262 such that a digital thread connects design, manufacturing, and/or other types of operations.
As used herein, the term “on-operation” may refer to an operational state in which a twinned physical system and the digital twin 250 are both operating. The term “off-operation” may refer to an operational state in which the twinned physical system is not in operation but the digital twin 250 continues to operate. The phrase “black box” may refer to a subsystem that may be comprised by the digital twin 250 for recording and preserving information acquired on-operation of the twinned physical system to be available for analysis off-operation of the twinned physical system. The phrase “tolerance envelope” may refer to the residual, or magnitude, by which a sensor's reading may depart from its predicted value without initiating other action such as an alarm or diagnostic routine. The term “tuning” may refer to an adjustment of the digital twin's software or component values or other parameters. The operational state may be either off-operation or on-operation. The term “mode” may refer to an allowable operational protocol for the digital twin 250 and its twinned physical system. There may be, according to some embodiments, a primary mode associated with a main mission and secondary modes.
Referring again to
The outputs from the digital twin 250 may include a continually updated estimate of the twinned physical system's Remaining Useful Life (“RUL”). The RUL estimate at time=t is for input conditions up through time=t−τ where τ is the digital twin's update interval. The outputs might further include a continually updated estimate of the twinned physical system's efficiency. For example, the BTU/kWHr or Thrust/specific fuel consumption estimate at time=t is for input conditions up through time=t−τ where τ is the digital twin's update interval. Other outputs from the digital twin 250 may include alerts of possible twinned physical system component malfunctions, and the results of the digital twin's diagnostic efforts, and/or performance estimates of key components within the twinned physical system. In some embodiments, a Graphical Interface Engine (“GIE”) (not shown) may be included in a digital twin. The GIE may let an operator select components of the twinned physical system that are specified in the digital twin's system structure and display renderings of the selected components scaled to fit a monitor's display. For example, pictures, especially moving pictures, may be provided that may instill greater insight for a technical observer as compared to what can be determined from presentations of arrays or a time series of numerical values. A structural engineer or a thermodynamics expert, for example, may often gain a deep insight into problems by observing the nature of component flexions or the development of heat gradients across components and their connections to other components. The GIE may also animate the renderings as the digital twin simulates a mission and display the renderings with an overlaid color (or texture) map whose colors (or textures) correspond to ranges of selected variables comprising flexing displacement, stress, strain, temperature, etc.
In another example, with the digital twin 250, an operator might be able to see how key sections of a gas turbine are degrading in performance. Such information and/or data might be an important consideration for maintenance scheduling, optimal control, and/or other goals. According to some embodiments, information may be recorded and preserved in a black box utilized to respect on-operation information of the twinned physical system for analysis off-operation of the twinned physical system.
The evolutionary feature selection kernel implements an evolutionary method to select features from a multi-dimensional dataset. A central premise when using a feature selection technique is that the data contains many features that are either redundant or irrelevant, and can thus be removed without incurring much loss of information. The use of fewer features or attributes is desirable because it reduces the complexity of the model, and a simpler model is simpler to understand and explain. In some implementations, the evolutionary feature selection process may also utilize a selection method based on NSGA-II, and the kernel supports classification and regression problems. With regard to classification problems, the evolutionary feature selection kernel supports the two objective functions of increasing accuracy, and of decreasing the number of features. In addition, the goals for the regression problem are to minimize the root-mean-square error (RMSE) and to minimize the number of features. A DT platform user can control the importance of the objectives in both problem types by utilizing weight parameters.
Accordingly,
Referring again to
Referring again to
Accordingly, in some implementations a symbolic regression feature synthesis kernel implements an evolutionary method to synthesize features from a multi-dimensional dataset, and may use a selection method based on NSGA-II (the “Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm”). NGSA-II is a Multiple Objective Optimization (MOO) algorithm and is an instance of an Evolutionary Algorithm from the field of Evolutionary Computation. The kernel supports classification and regression problem types, and can be utilized to accomplish a first goal of maximizing the true positive rate, and a second goal of maximizing the true negative rate. In some embodiments, the importance of each of these two goals can be controlled by the user specifying weight parameters.
Accordingly, after providing one or more of the advanced algorithm parameters 522, the user selects the “Build” button 518 so that the process generates the Summary page 550 shown in
During a symbolic regression process individuals are evaluated at each iteration to select the individuals with the highest true positive rate and true negative rate to the next generation. The true positive rate and the true negative rate are calculated by applying a model trained using this individual's features to a test dataset and calculating how many true positives and true negatives the model predicted. The process has two ways of evaluating an individual: using approximation or building (training) a logistic regression model for every single individual. For approximation one model is built at the beginning of the process, thus reducing computing time. For an exact method, a model is trained for each individual that was created during the evolutionary process. In some embodiments, if a problem type is regression and an approximation option was selected by the DT model building framework user, then the regression model using all training data and all variables in the data set is trained once, at the beginning of the evolutionary process. When it is time in the process to evaluate an individual, by applying the logistic regression model and calculating true positive and true negative rates and comparing the rates to the rest of the individuals in the population the model that was trained at the beginning of the process is used to evaluate this individual. To be able to use the model that was trained using all variables to evaluate an individual with only a subset of variables that the individual has, the evaluation data is modified by setting the data of missing variables to zeros. If a problem type is regression and the DT model building framework user selected the train option, then every time an individual needs to be evaluated by the algorithm, a new regression model is trained using only a subset of the variables of this individual, and this model is used to evaluate the individual. In each of these cases the evaluation is done by applying the trained model to the individual. This produces prediction values which are then compared to true values, and the true positive rate and the true negative rate are calculated based on the difference between the predicted values and the true values.
In some embodiments, an evolutionary feature synthesis algorithm is provided that uses evolutionary methods to generate new features from a multi-dimensional dataset. The evolutionary search is guided by the features' information gain, which is a metric that measures usefulness of a feature (wherein the higher the information gain the better the feature is), and the complexity of the expression. The information gain is calculated using entropy-based discretization, and the objectives are to maximize the information gain and to minimize the complexity of the expression. The importance of the objectives can be controlled by a DT platform user via input of a magnitude of the weight parameters. The algorithm uses an evolutionary method, and it uses a selection method based on NSGA-II. In addition to the information gain ranking, the evolutionary feature synthesis algorithm produces an entropy-based metric of each feature for positive and negative samples, as well as a feature importance metric for all Pareto Front optimal features. In some implementations, the evolutionary feature synthesis algorithm supports only classification problem types. In addition, in some embodiments, the evolutionary feature synthesis algorithm supports only numerical datasets with binary labels, where negative labels have to be zeros and positive labels can be any non-zero values. In some embodiments, the input parameters may include, but not be limited to a Number of Generations (iterations) which is the number of generations to run; a Number of Individuals to Select for Next Generation, which is the number of individuals to select for next generation; a Number of Children to Generate at Each Iteration, which is the number of children to produce at each generation; a Crossover Probability, which is the probability that an offspring is produced by crossover; a Mutation Probability, which is the probability that an offspring is produced by mutation; an Information Gain Objective Weight, which is the importance measure for the information gain objective; a Complexity of the Expression Objective Weight, which is a measure of importance for the complexity of the expression objective; a Feature Interaction Level, which is the level of feature interaction (depth of max SR tree); a Maximum Number of New Features to Save, which is the maximum number of features to save to file; a Random Seed (None or a Number), which random seed is provided for reproducibility and testing; and a set of operators, such as add, subtract, multiply, divide, square root, negative, cosine, sine, log and the like (wherein a user may input a value of “all” which will select all of the supported operators).
The embodiments described herein may be implemented using any number of different hardware configurations. For example,
The DT processor 702 also communicates with a storage device 710. The storage device 710 may comprise any appropriate information storage device, including combinations of magnetic storage devices (e.g., a hard disk drive), optical storage devices, mobile telephones, and/or semiconductor memory devices. The storage device 710 stores a program 712 and/or a probabilistic model 714 for controlling the DT processor 702. The DT processor 702 performs instructions of the programs 712, 714, and thereby operates in accordance with any of the embodiments described herein. For example, the DT processor 702 may receive data and utilize machine learning techniques to generate predictive models concerning one or more operating aspects and/or components associated with a twinned physical system. The DT processor 702 may also, for at least a selected portion of the twinned physical system, monitor a condition of the selected portion of the twinned physical system and/or assess a remaining useful life of the selected portion based at least in part on the sensed values of the one or more designated parameters. The DT processor 702 may transmit information associated with a result generated by the computer processor. Note that the one or more sensors may sense values of the one or more designated parameters, and the DT processor 702 may perform the monitoring and/or assessing, even when the twinned physical system is not operating.
The programs 712, 714 may be stored in a compressed, uncompiled and/or encrypted format. The programs 712, 714 may furthermore include other program elements, such as an operating system, clipboard application, a database management system, and/or device drivers used by the DT processor 702 to interface with peripheral devices.
As used herein, information may be “received” by or “transmitted” to, for example: (i) the digital twin platform 700 from another device; or (ii) a software application or module within the digital twin platform 700 from another software application, module, or any other source.
In some embodiments (such as the one shown in
Referring to
The digital twin identifier 802 may be, for example, a unique alphanumeric code identifying a digital twin of a twinned physical system. The engine data 804 might identify a twinned physical engine identifier, a type of engine, an engine model, etc. The engine operational status 806 might indicate, for example, that the twinned physical engine state is “on” (operation) or “off” (not operational). The vibration data 808 might indicate data that is collected by sensors and that is processed by the digital twin. Note that vibration data 808 is collected and processed even when the twinned physical system is “off” (as reflected by the third entry in the database 716).
Thus, some embodiments may provide systems and methods to facilitate predictive model building, assessments and/or predictions for a physical system in an automatic and accurate manner.
The following illustrates various additional embodiments of the invention. These do not constitute a definition of all possible embodiments, and those skilled in the art will understand that the present invention is applicable to many other embodiments. Further, although the following embodiments are briefly described for clarity, those skilled in the art will understand how to make any changes, if necessary, to the above-described apparatus and methods to accommodate these and other embodiments and applications.
Although specific hardware and data configurations have been described herein, note that any number of other configurations may be provided in accordance with embodiments of the present invention (e.g., some of the information associated with the databases described herein may be combined or stored in external systems). For example, although some embodiments are focused on EGT, any of the embodiments described herein could be applied to other engine factors related to hardware deterioration, such as engine fuel flow, and to non-engine implementations.
The present invention has been described in terms of several embodiments solely for the purpose of illustration. Persons skilled in the art will recognize from this description that the invention is not limited to the embodiments described, but may be practiced with modifications and alterations limited only by the spirit and scope of the appended claims.