Soft Sensors for Digital Twins

Soft sensors are a digital version of a physical sensors where several measurements are processed together for a specific parameter. They are computational and statistical correlation-based methods. The challenges from physical sensors can be tackled through a multi strategy approach using soft sensors to augment an array of physical sensors, we can enable more traces and higher data quality in digital twins. We can use soft sensors to supplement, validate, and potentially replace physical sensors.

1. Supplement: Access unavailable live data where sensor probe for specific parameter not available or too expensive, reduce latency on laboratory work which has a time lag in receiving results whereas soft sensors deliver results in milliseconds, scale up digital twin with more robust data.
2. Validate: Identify sensor drift, filter out anomalies, increase trust in sensor data.
3. Replace: With low deployment cost and maintenance, easy and quick testing and iteration - soft sensors can be used in place of physical sensors for secondary factors that might not be worth the maintenance burden of physical probes.

Soft sensors can potentially be deployed across domains and projects where physical sensors applications are valuable and where digital twins are being built.