How Advanced Analytics Supercharges Digital Twin Technology in Defense

Military personnel face extreme levels of risk every time they step out on a mission. They have much to worry about, as one wrong decision—or one minor malfunction of a piece of defense technology or equipment—can cost lives. It’s why the DoD and its hundreds of thousands of contractors build to a rigorous standard, following a complicated process that involves testing and retesting—with live soldier feedback—to get it right.

In this era of breathtaking technological change, the acquisition community faces extraordinary pressure to deliver faster, less expensively, and with greater reliability. New techniques in simulation, which leverage increased computing power and other advancements, are enabling manufacturers to meet the challenge more effectively.

Advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) are supercharging the emerging science of digital twins, which enable defense manufacturers to create dynamic virtual computer-based models to help achieve a finished product sooner than ever before.

Digital twins provide critical, real-time insights into how products are manufactured. They evolve as they are fed more data, and the use of analytics helps the defense manufacturing enterprise predict performance, identify potential problems, find solutions for bottlenecks, and evolve designs. With advanced analytics and AI, digital twin technology can also create models of the battlespace, helping commanders shape their responses to threats and attacks.

Broadly speaking, digital twins are reducing risk, improving interoperability, driving standardization, strengthening supply chains, and accelerating fielding. By pairing them with advanced analytics, the DoD and contractors have a powerful new tool that can shape strategy and tactics—elements of the digital battlefield that are necessary to keep pace with adversaries.

Digital Twins Reduce Risk Across Lifecycles

The application of digital twins in testing and validation of equipment shows how advanced analytics helps reduce risk. It can turn the validation phases into a virtual process, helping avoid the costly do-overs that are common in the analog production world.

With digital twins, systems are delivered faster and more reliably to the warfighter, while also providing predictability and stability in budgeting. In certain instances, the DoD is finding that analytics-driven simulations can help achieve significant savings. For example, a contractor used digital twins to “assess high-fidelity search-and-track radar-performance metrics,” according to Alexander Weber from Cutter Consortium, an industry consultant. “Cost savings from the radar digital twin (RDT) stem from the ability to digitally assess end-item software, verify system-level requirements, support pre-mission analysis and events without hardware, and conduct virtual warfighter training and exercises.”

Other areas that are prime for risk reduction from digital twins include:

• Strengthening supply chains. Digital twins can be used to simulate manufacturing and logistics pipelines. In doing so, the technology helps identify bottlenecks, supplier weaknesses, and material shortages before they can impact end-product delivery. The benefits include “cost efficiency, situational awareness, force readiness, fleet management, and sustainability,” according to Accenture’s Matthew Gollings.
• Testing and certification. Advanced analytics gives digital twins the unique capability to conduct virtual prototyping. One exciting element is the ability for them to evolve with the availability of new data from the field. The real data translates into projections, reducing reliance on physical builds and the need for destructive testing.

Collectively, these types of capabilities are driving enormous investments in digital twin technology that’s linked with advanced analytics. A Markets & Markets study projects that the digital twin market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 48% through 2030.

Interoperability: Standards Become Strategic Decisions

Analytics-powered digital twins function as virtual replicas of items that will eventually see real-world duty in warfighting scenarios. That said, they offer greater insights than simple static 3D designs. They provide dynamic, real-time insights by enabling seamless integration across the decision chain, including DoD leaders, prime contractors and their subcontractors, military depots, and base activities.

By providing a common operational picture to all parties, stakeholders can make more informed and coordinated decisions with clearer information. This collaboration also encourages intra-service collaboration, as personnel from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force can share logistics and maintenance insights that lead to standardization. This reduces duplicative efforts and simplifies upgrades.

Digital twins are proving to be crucial for an integrated digital engineering strategy. Advanced analytics turns authoritative data into a strategic tool that enables models to “talk” to each other across the acquisition process. A RAND Corporation survey of 200 aerospace companies found that digital twins and advanced analytics were transforming their business models via the introduction of activities like integration with government data systems.

Taken together, these layers remove chance from the equation. Interoperability shifts from aspiration to mandate, reducing expenses, limiting rework, and accelerating modernization across the force.

Keeping Up with Adversaries’ Use of Digital Twins

Analytics and digital twins enable leaders to model entire production lines. This translates directly into fielding aircraft, ships, and vehicles more quickly and reliably due to the strategic choices that they enable.

However, our adversaries are not standing still. Other large militaries are also investing in these approaches to surge production and sustainment. It’s not enough to just keep pace; the world’s largest military needs to lead the way.

Advanced analytics turns digital twins into a tool with direct impacts on the battlefield. By embedding analytics-driven twins now, DoD can set the standards that will govern the defense industrial base for decades.

Digital twins can translate their impact even beyond the battlefield and production environment. They offer enhanced capabilities for mission-critical elements, including cybersecurity, workforce training, and industrial policy. The ultimate goal is to develop secure, reliable, and scalable pipelines.

The aerospace and defense industries are already investing heavily in the technology across both sectors. But more is needed. Choosing leadership means shaping the future through the use of advanced analytics, rather than inheriting one defined by rivals.

Advanced Analytics and Digital Twins: Team with Sumaria Systems

Across the acquisition lifecycle, digital twins reduce uncertainty and costs while ensuring faster and more dependable delivery to the warfighter. Long-term success depends on interoperability, standards, and integrated digital engineering—turning aspiration into mandate.

By embedding and scaling digital twins now, the DoD can lead globally, set enduring standards, and shape the defense industrial base for years to come. As the era of digital twins unfolds, acquisition and program officers need the support of industry.

Sumaria Systems has over forty years of experience in systems engineering, network modernization, defense IT, and interoperability. Its team can create a plan for implementing digital twins and build the necessary systems to integrate layers of data analytics and AI.

Digital twins and AI bring real-time foresight and control into defense manufacturing. Whether building new systems or sustaining legacy platforms, these technologies empower DoD leaders to reduce cost, mitigate risk, and ensure production resilience at scale. Contact us for help with the strategic integration of advanced technologies and methods to streamline and optimize the development, maintenance, and operation of systems and infrastructures.