Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Digital Twins in Engineering and Medicine

每天都有关于手术或药物治疗等医疗程序的决定：它们影响和制约着患者的未来。它们基于既定的最佳实践，但不一定考虑到一个人的个人特征。类似的决策过程可以在复杂的工程系统中找到，或者在飞机的维护计划中找到。然而，在过去的十年中，人们已经认识到，向个性化医疗的过渡可能会改善患者的生活，提高临床护理的质量，以及可能降低总体医疗成本。对于复杂的工程系统也有类似的观察，呼吁开发使用海量数据来驱动单个智能机器的网络物理系统和动态数据处理。要切实实现这一转变，需要1)开发一种新技术，以便从数据中提取有意义的信息并对其进行正确的解释，2)制定相应的计划，在这一全球领域培养未来的劳动力，以及3)确定和解决相关的伦理和隐私问题。这笔规划赠款将为拟议的中心制定愿景，通过使用数字双胞胎影响这些重要领域中活的和非活的实体的健康监测和决策过程，在未来20年影响这一转变。这些是生物和非生物物理实体的数字复制品。他们的基本概念将人工智能、机器学习和软件分析与基于物理的建模相结合。他们的主要目的是充当活生生的数字模拟模型，不断接受培训和更新，以能够反映其物理对手的状态和行为。这笔赠款将专注于规划一个中心的发展，该中心将整合致力于数字双胞胎核心技术的研究小组，如算法、硬件、软件、基于物理的机器学习、数学和统计，以及致力于三个显著不同应用领域的同行：飞机健康监测；定制减肥计划；以及金属3D打印部件的资格鉴定。这种整合将定义对数字双胞胎的共同要求，推进这些应用领域，并探索它们的社会和伦理影响。这将在数学家、工程师、医生、律师和哲学家之间建立一个多学科的对话，并就如何塑造这项技术的未来达成一致的愿景。这笔赠款将促成一个探索性研讨会，它将有助于确定学术界、企业界和政府中的广泛利益相关者社区，形成团队和管理结构，最重要的是，为未来的数字工程和医学双胞胎工程研究中心确定一个多学科、融合的愿景。这笔规划赠款将促进关于数字双胞胎、工程劳动力发展、包容的多样性和文化以及创新生态系统等主题的对话，将在来自不同机构和学科的不同研究人员和从业人员之间建立新的联系，并确定中心的潜在成员。此外，计划作出明确努力，让主要为代表不足的少数群体服务的机构的合作伙伴参与这项规划赠款的活动。根据促进融合研究的想法，新形成的对数字双胞胎有共同兴趣的联系的影响，有可能在未来涌现出其他合作领域。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Decisions are made every day about medical procedures such as surgeries or drug treatments: they affect and condition the future of patients. They are based on established best practices, but do not necessarily account for the individual traits of a person. A similar decision-making process can be found in complex engineering systems, or the maintenance schedule of an aircraft. During the last decade however,it has been recognized that the transition to personalized medicine will potentially enhance the life of patients and increase the quality of clinical care, as well as potentially lower the overall healthcare costs. A similar observation has been made regarding complex engineering systems, with a call to develop cyber-physical systems and dynamic data processes that use massive amounts of data to drive individual smart machines. The practical realization of this transition requires 1) the development of a new technology for extracting meaningful information from data and interpreting it correctly, 2) an accompanying plan for educating the future workforce in this global area, and 3) the identification and resolution of the associated ethical and privacy issues. This planning grant will develop the vision for the proposed Center to influence this transformation during the next two decades by influencing the health monitoring and decision-making processes of living and non-living physical entities in these important areas using digital twins. These are digital replicas of living and non-living physical entities. Their underlying concept integrates artificial intelligence, machine learning, and software analytics with physics-based modeling. Their main purpose is to act as living digital simulation models that are continuously trained and updated to be able to mirror the states and behaviors of their physical counterparts.This grant will focus on planning the development of a Center that will integrate research groups working on core technologies for digital twins, such as algorithms, hardware, software,physics-based machine learning, and mathematics and statistics, with counterparts working on three significantly different application areas: aircraft health monitoring; customized weight loss programs; and qualification of metal 3D printed parts. This integration will define the common requirements for digital twins, advance these application areas and explore their societal and ethical implications. This will establish a multi-disciplinary dialog between mathematicians, engineers, medical doctors, lawyers and philosophers, and a convergent vision for how to shape the future of this technology. The grant will enable an Exploratory Workshop that will serve to identify the broad stakeholder community in academia and the corporate world and government, form the team and management structure, and most importantly, define a multi-disciplinary, convergent vision for a future Engineering Research Center in Digital Twins for Engineering and Medicine. The dialog that this planning grant will foster on the subjects of digital twins, engineering workforce development, diversity and culture of inclusion, and innovation ecosystem will build new connections between a diverse group of researchers and practitioners from different institutions and disciplines and identify the potential members of the Center. Additionally, explicit efforts are planned to engage partners from institutions that serve primarily underrepresented minorities in the activities of this planning grant. The impact of the newly formed connections with a shared interest in digital twins, in line with the idea of fostering a convergent research, has the potential to spring other areas of collaboration in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.