Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1442832
PAIRING TECHNOLOGIES Pairing technologies are critical to digital twinning and the world of Industry 4.0, as these technologies empower a device or system to find, connect, and communicate with other devices and systems. For example, sensors and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) products require the ability to find and connect with other devices successfully. Technologies such as Bluetooth ® , among others, are employed to make these connections. To accomplish this, connected devices must be able to interrogate other potentially connectable devices successfully. When querying other devices, units must be able to ascertain whether or not they are communicating with a unit that they should be corresponding and exchanging data with. When properly enabled and successful, this accomplishment is called pairing. Security issues are paramount. Every device should pair only after proper identification has been confirmed to avoid crosstalk or misinformation. Shortcuts may get achieved through programming algorithms that allow the devices to quickly and easily identify other units that they should pair with. Pairing gets accomplished through authentication keys employing cryptography. Pairing works to ensure that the connections stay bonded in a data exchanging relationship between devices and works to prevent an external source from prying into their data exchanges. Being that flexibility is paramount, units must be able to make and break their pairing quickly and without external, human involvement. Successful pairing may require ongoing communication to keep the pairing active. If one of the units determines that the pairing bond is no longer relevant to its successful operational objectives, it will remove its pairing relationship and present itself available for a different pairing opportunity. CYBER-PHYSICAL SYSTEMS The National Science Foundation (NSF) defines cyber-physical systems (CPS) as, "The tight conjoining of and coordination between computational and physical resources." The critical element in this definition is that it focuses on a system approach— where a set of connected things or parts form a complex whole. A current example of a CPS is the automated airline flight-control systems. Industry 4.0 requires traffic control, not for airplanes, but for the machines, computers, robots, sensors, and processes that comprehensively work together for its realization. It represents a system of higher-order than IIoT because it sits one level higher in the complexity chain. Where IIoT is concerned with collecting, handling, and sharing of large amounts of data, CPS focuses on ensuring that this enormous amount of data, collected from multiple systems, gets properly utilized across various disciplines that are relevant to the industry involved. The unique dilemmas of any given enterprise will require engineering expertise to address these specific challenges. AUGMENTED, VIRTUAL, AND MIXED REALITY New technologies are augmenting our reality. They are providing us with the ability to overlay digital content in front of us physically, merging the real with the virtual, creating a mixed reality that should be considered augmented. This gain is allowing engineers to view things in new ways. For example, rather than seeing a DT on a computer monitor, we could observe a DT using an augmented reality (AR) headset that enables the users to engage with digital content or interact with holograms. The use of such AR empowers viewers to have an immersive experience whereby they engage their bodily senses. Reality- enhancing headsets can create real-time experiences of actual conditions happening in the physical world, by way of experiencing them through a digitized environment. AR could lead to new insights and understandings. Additionally, a DT display could appear in the user's field of view, making real-time feedback that much more accessible and easy to use. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNOLOGIES IIoT offers the promise to provide connected data; therefore, useful data must be stored and analyzed. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a solution for analyzing and successfully handling large amounts of digital data. It helps allow digital twinning to become more realized because it promotes value by enabling rapid integration, hybrid integration, investment leverage, and system management and compliance. | 28 |