Digital twin exploration of a blended-wing-body underwater glider skeleton in the laboratory environment

Due to the inherent unpredictability of marine trial conditions, safety issues in the launching and recovery process are commonplace. For these issues, digital twin (DT) maintenance offers a novel idea. In this paper, a blended-wing-body underwater glider skeleton is selected as a research object. And a simple demo is created to investigate the major technologies that may be involved in DT maintenance. According to this specimen, the necessary development environments are developed to obtain physical information and produce a DT model in cyberspace respectively. An attitude sensor is used as the physical data collector, while real-time structural field prediction and virtual reality visualisation are employed. By using the attitude angles and structural data, it is possible to achieve real-time monitoring of the skeleton strength. Through the means of this straightforward case study, the key technologies are supported and can be applied to far more complex inquiries.