Potentials of game engines for wind power digital twin development: an investigation of the Unreal engine

Jonas Vedsted Sørensen, Zheng Grace Ma*, Bo Nørregaard Jørgensen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

Digital twin technologies have become popular in wind energy for monitoring and what-if scenario investigation. However, developing a digital representation of the wind is challenging, especially due to the digital twin platform constraints. Game engines might be possible to solve this issue, especially since game engines have been used for product design, testing, prototyping, and also digital twins. Therefore, this paper investigates the potential of developing a digital twin of wind power in the Unreal game engine. A case study of two types of wind turbines (Vestas V164-8 and Enercon E-126 7.580) and one location (Esbjerg, Denmark) is chosen in this paper. The digital twin includes the environment with historical wind data and the visual representation of the wind turbine with a wind power production model and the estimated production in the given wind conditions of the area. The results show that game engines are viable for building entire digital twins where a realistic graphical user interface is required. Unreal Engine 5 provides the tools for modelling the landscape, surrounding water, and lighting. In addition, the Unreal Engine ecosystem provides vast amounts of content, such as 3D assets and game logic plugins, easing the digital twin development. The results prove that digital twins built in Unreal Engine 5 have great potential development of digital twins and user interfaces for communicating with a digital twin. The developed digital twin allows for further extension to benefit future digital twins utilizing wind turbines.
Original languageEnglish
Article number39
JournalEnergy Informatics
Volume5
Issue numberSuppl. 4
ISSN2520-8942
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022
EventEnergy Informatics.Academy Conference 2022 - Vejle, Denmark
Duration: 24. Aug 202225. Aug 2022
https://www.energyinformatics.academy/eia-2022-conference

Conference

ConferenceEnergy Informatics.Academy Conference 2022
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityVejle
Period24/08/202225/08/2022
Internet address

Keywords

  • Digital Twin
  • Wind Energy
  • Game engine
  • Unreal Engine
  • Simulation
  • Wind energy
  • Digital twin

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