A digital twin is a digital representation of a real physical system, product, or process that functions as its practically identical digital counterpart for tasks such as testing, integration, monitoring, and maintenance. Creating digital twins allows the ‘digital system’ or ‘digital product’ to be tested at faster-than-real-time which improves overall program efficiency and shortens the programme duration.
The HORIBA Intelligent Lab virtual engineering toolset was used to generate an Empirical Digital Twin (EDT) of a contemporary off-highway diesel Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) from physical testing, accounting for the effects of altitude and combustion air temperature. The EDT was subsequently used to predict engine performance and emissions for several synthetic off-highway machine cycles at sea-level and 3000m altitude. The synthetic agricultural cycles which included ploughing, seeding, spraying, fertilising, and roading were generated using a machine simulation programme created by Soluzioni Ingegneria and IPG Automotive. This combined physical testing and simulation approach to off-highway machine development and calibration is expected to support Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) with In Service Monitoring (ISM) within the Stage V emissions period and supplement powertrain development for future emissions standards.
The off-highway simulations were conducted using semi-empirical Magic Formula (MF) tyre models which accounted for the tyre-soil elastoplastic working relationship. These models incorporated the coefficients of longitudinal traction and forward resistance on plastic soil and were developed from ASAE standards and extensive field testing with instrumented vehicles. This new off-highway simulation platform developed by Soluzioni Ingegneria and IPG Automotive allows the generation of complex off-highway scenarios which can be used to estimate loading of machine components such as hydraulics, pneumatics, and accessories and right-sizing of powertrains for given machine applications.