Digital twin with Machine learning for predictive monitoring of CO2 equivalent from existing buildings

Abstract

The revolution of the industry 4.0 presents a new era of digital transformation for the construction industry, advancing towards the concept of digital twins, while on the other hand it faces the global challenge of reducing carbon emissions from operational assets. The current research gap in the application of digital twins for achieving net zero were reviewed in this study, highlighting its potentials for enhancement in the built environment, and emphasizing the need for demonstration of a use-case analysis for its adoption by the industry. This research presents a digital twin solution to automate the monitoring and controlling of equivalent carbon dioxide (eCO2) emissions from existing assets through the integration of IoT, BIM, and artificial intelligence across a comprehensive solution, further validating its workability through a real-life use case analysis. The study revealed the significance of BIM and IoT, as essential components of a digital twin to visualise critical spatial information for enhanced facility management specifically for monitoring of indoor air quality of spaces, while also coalescing an AI-supported system to predict carbon emissions from the collected data through integration of machine learning features across the digital twin. The output of the entire solution is displayed as an interactive dashboard for observing trends and patterns, enabling stakeholders to implement effective data-driven retrofitting strategies. This research is a fundamental initiation for implementing digital twins to monitor emissions from existing assets, a step towards achieving the net zero targets.