Introduction to the Digital Twin in Telecommunications
The Digital Twin is now a key tool within the infrastructure lifecycle, telecommunications networks are no different, and in recent years there have been experiments on the possible use cases; this year at the WMC in Barcelona it seems that the market is really willing to invest in this technology, supported also by the development of artificial intelligence that allows predictive analytics to be done by exploiting precisely the “digital model” of radio base stations.
La SIA’s Experience in BIM for Telecommunication Networks
La SIA SpA strengthened by the experience gained over the years in the field of TLC with the BIM modeling of more than 11,500 radio base stations for a leading Italian TowerCo, has identified the standardization of procedures and in particular of libraries and models as the real key in the digitization process of an infrastructural asset such as that of mobile phone networks; the methodological approach has allowed us to create families designed according to a taxonomy that facilitates both design experts and users to navigate the digital models to understand the nature of each individual component.
Standardization and Quality in the Digitization Process
Setting the quality target of the models, in order to prevent the creation of information that does not adhere to the client’s specifications, allowed us to have parametric families to maximize their reuse and thus have a control process to extract statistics, queries and maintenance information from the HOC-developed Platform that precisely allows for loading, viewing and use even from different devices.
La SIA’s AIM Platform for Information Management
Pulsing Heart has been the development of an AIM (Asset Information Management) platform where models can be uploaded, which automatically analyzes, performing a real validation, the BIM model in all its parts and points out any discrepancies and information inconsistencies through reports, in this way, a high level of information & quality control is guaranteed to the client; In addition, the platform is able to historicize, extract key information and make it available to all stakeholders, allowing the creation of Dashboards understandable and manageable by anyone.
Benefits of Digitization for Network Maintenance and Engineering.
La SIA, thanks to its AIM platform is able to connect different corporate structures, which can easily use BIM models, even without having BIM project management skills, allowing users involved in on field maintenance, to have in Digital, through the use of tablets or smartphones, data sheets, maintenance plans, safety procedures, simply by framing a QR-code present locally on the Radio Base Station, just as service engineers can determine, the occupancy of a pylon, residual static availability or electromagnetic spaces, simply by querying an always available updated digital model.
