Digital twins in the minerals industry – a comprehensive review

Abstract

Digital Twins (DT) have become popular in various industries to solve complex problems. A true DT allows for bidirectional real-time data flows between the physical and virtual worlds.The term DT was often overused, leading to confusion about its capabilities therefore this paper provides a review of the current state of DT and its applications in the minerals industry.Existing literature shows a slow adoption of DTs in the minerals industry, which is largely due to challenges associated with geological unpredictability, legacy system integration, cost, skill gaps, cybersecurity, and lack of standards.Combining immersive visualisation with real-time spatial computer graphics could improve the usability and acceptance of DTs in the minerals industry which has been used successfully in training while underexplored for operational scenarios. The study concludes by highlighting the need for further research to understand the effectiveness of such an approach in mineral operations.

Developing a digital twin for a laboratory ball mill operation – a step towards mining metaverse

“…The term ‘digital twin’ (DT) came from the pioneering vision of having a data-driven, digital replica that accurately represents a real-world entity in terms of its attributes and real-time behaviours (Rasheed et al, 2020). The concept was first introduced as an idea for product lifecycle management in 2002 by Dr Michael Grieves who later illustrated a DT as the ‘Mirrored Spaces Model’ in 2005 (Grieves, 2005).…”