Towards Standardized Digital Twins for Health, Sport, and Well-being

Abstract

The digital twin has evolved from the restricted meaning of a replica for a component or system in the industrial process, to a wider definition as a digital replica of any physical entity, including living things. This recent re-definition brings about a powerful concept, bridging the gap between the physical and the digital world for different types of entities, among which human beings are the top of the list. This concept opens new doors for improving the quality of life and well-being for individuals. Indeed, the digital twin concept can be applied to many domains, among which one of the most important domains is the one of health and well-being. In this thesis, we contribute to the emerging digital twin technology, to enhance well-being of real twins. We leverage the advances in sensing technology and actuation, in cloud computing and data analytics, as well as in data visualization, which are pillars on which the digital twin technology with its new definition is based. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”. Possibilities for improvement of well-being are unlimited, nonetheless we show in this thesis how a digital twin system can help establish a better state of well-being in these three areas. The physical, social and mental well-being are all interconnected domains, each affecting the person’s well-being in the other two areas, and we aim at obtaining an improved quality of life in all three of them using a digital twin system. On a physical health and well-being level, overweight and obesity are globally the fifth leading death factor, and the number of deaths in adults caused by overweight or obesity reaches 2.8 million every year according to WHO. One of the main causes of overweight and obesity is the sedentary life style with non-existent or very little physical activity. In this thesis, we propose a digital twin framework for health, sport, and well-being. This framework integrates personal health devices, data analytics, and user interaction. It also uses motivational methods to help sedentary individuals get physically active. We specifically tackle the sedentary life style enforced by watching TV for long periods of time daily. We also suggest a social well-being model that encourages the collective production of green human energy, to be donated to poor countries. This system contributes to physical well-being at the same time, and leverages people’s drive for social good to boost their motivation to generate green energy by exercising. This green energy donation model also engages sedentary people in team competitions, while making a better use of the time spent watching TV every day. Besides, other electronics that can also undermine individuals’ well-being is smartphone with its excessive usage. Indeed, studies have shown that it can affect the mental well-being, and we have built an application to help tackle this problem. Finally, we designed and implemented the different parts of the proposed Digital Twin System based on the ISO/IEEE 11073 Standard, and conducted experiments as a proof of concept for our proposed system. The findings are very promising as our evaluation shows that participants are highly motivated to use this system and had encouraging benefits from it in terms of their wellbeing.