Digitale Schiene Deutschland presents the first photo-realistic digital twin of a railroad line
On November 20 and 21, this year's Digital Summit of the Federal Government took place under the motto "Digital Transformation in the Turning Point - Sustainable. Resilient. Future-oriented." in Jena. Around 1,200 participants from politics, business, science and civil society discussed topics and solutions for the digital transformation. Digitale Schiene Deutschland had a trade fair stand at the "Market of Digital Opportunities" and, together with its cooperation partner NVIDIA, presented the first photorealistic digital twin of a railroad line for fully automated driving to the general public.
Prominent visitors were welcomed to the trade fair stand. Federal Transport Minister Dr. Volker Wissing, accompanied by the Lord Mayor of Jena, Dr. Thomas Nitzsche, and Parliamentary State Secretary Daniela Kluckert came to see the cooperation project. Together with project partner NVIDIA, the first photorealistic digital twin of an S-Bahn test track in Hamburg was presented. This is an important milestone in the collaboration between DB Netz and NVIDIA as part of the sector initiative Digitale Schiene Deutschland. The digital twin enables the simulation of incidents in rail operations. The implementation was based on data recorded as part of the completed predecessor project "Sensors4Rail". Among other things, a precise, high-resolution digital map (HD Map) of the Hamburg S-Bahn network was created there.
Various scenarios were simulated based on a journey on this route. These were incidents that had actually occurred in the past and were simulated in the highly realistic 1:1 reproduction of the track environment (e.g. a trampoline on the track). The advantage of this is that real routes or vehicles are not required. The collected data is used to train an artificial intelligence (AI) that continuously analyzes the track environment and reacts optimally when necessary. Only then will the fully automated traction unit be able to react appropriately to special events in the future, for example by initiating emergency braking.
The video of the simulated S-Bahn line in Hamburg can be found here:
