Digital Twin and Real-time Situational Awareness for Sustainable and Smart Campus Management

Keywords: Internet of Things, Urban Mobility, Parking Management, Digital Twin, Cyberinfrastructure, Game Engine, Driving Simulator, Situational Awareness, Traffic
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 1

Abstract

Recent advances in next-generation information and sensing technologies have connected vehicles, infrastructure, and everyday objects through the internet, shedding light on an Internet of Things (IoT)-based approach for smart campus management in the vision of developing smart cities. This paper presents the conceptual design and technical development of a Digital Twin (DT) to improve the planning and management of urban mobility and transportation assets in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) campus in East Tennessee. The DT is created to serve as a generalized and centralized cyberinfrastructure to (1) enable the real-time situational awareness of the traffic and parking conditions within the ORNL through the combination of a variety of IoT-connected sensors and deep learning-powered vehicle detection algorithms, (2) provide integrated data access and download to real-time traffic and parking information through adaptive web APIs, and (3) host a variety of smart city web applications to support decisions in campus planning and management. These web applications include a building and parking space navigation tool connected with real-time parking availability information, a visual dashboard for analyzing traffic speed, volume, and turn movement at intersections, and a 3D interactive driving simulator to allow virtual exploration of ORNL’s campus under different weather and lighting conditions. We implemented the DT using adaptive design, flexible architecture, and open-source technologies. It is generalizable and extendable for supporting collaborative campus management, public engagement, and learning activities in other campuses or for a wide range of urban science research topics.