Three years of simulation discoveries: Value generation for infrastructure and mobility
The projects within Center of Excellence created new standards and capabilities for modeling complex infrastructure and mobility. The discoveries that Siemens and Georgia Tech made over the past three years will bring real value to future infrastructure and transportation design and planning.
With researchers concentrating on the region of the Atlanta airport—the world’s busiest airport—advancements in simulation and modeling are positioned to generate significant real-world outcomes.
Siemens and Georgia Tech engaged in seven specific research projects:
- Electrical Vehicle Recharging and Mobility Optimization via Visualization Environment (EVERMOVE):
The EVERMOVE project focused on the strategic placement of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCS) within the Atlanta Aerotropolis for sustainable mobility at scale. The research derived powerful new capabilities in scenario-based resilience modeling, air-mobility demand forecasting, and infrastructure optimization under uncertainty, helping create a new standard for sustainable transportation analysis.
- Green Architecture Integrated Analysis (GAIA):
The GAIA project created models of energy loads to explore the relationship between demand and
optimal supply for a variety of scenarios for the Siemens Corporate Technology (CT) Headquarters in Princeton, NJ. The result was a set of simulations that led to better understanding of the trends, interdependencies, and robustness of the cost-optimal DER portfolios, simulations that could later be used to better design on-site energy systems.
- Hourly Energy Simulation for Technology Infusion Analysis (HESTIA):
The HESTIA project focused on Georgia Tech’s Kendeda Living Building, a sustainable campus building that can generate electrical power via rooftop solar panels that it uses in the daytime. To figure out optimal use of any surplus energy, the researchers determined a precedent for modeling building systems using established and emerging technologies to find cost savings and emission reductions.
- Integrated-Mobility Environment for the Exploration of Sustainable Infrastructures (NEXUS):
The primary challenge NEXUS addressed was how to objectively assess and compare future mobility alternatives without incurring the risks and costs of physical trials. This produced a fully interactive decision-support dashboard capable of visualizing trade-offs in mobility strategies in real time, creating the capability to model baseline transportation conditions that will help shift transportation planning from reactive fixes to proactive optimization.
- Power Resilient Infrastructure for Mobility and Energy Demand (PRIMED):
The PRIMED project examined the advantages of different energy technology portfolios (a mix of DERs and grid-supplied energy) to handle vehicle-charging variables while having the capacity to absorb simultaneous extreme travel demand and grid outages. This led to insights into how DERs can improve the resilience of high-volume travel periods.
- Transformative Sustainable Integrated Transportation (TRANSIT):
The TRANSIT project built a comprehensive methodology to model, simulate, and optimize transportation networks facing disruptive events. This resulted in a fully integrated interactive platform where stakeholders could compare mobility strategies and prioritize performance metrics in real time.
- Transitioning to Electric Resources for Resiliency and Affordability (TERRA):
The TERRA project modelled specific energy demands at the Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (HJAIA) to quantify new resiliency goals. This resulted in an original model for examining the trade-offs between prioritizing different critical loads during an outage.
Our collaborative projects within the Georgia Tech Center of Excellence have delivered significant value to Siemens. Through these efforts, Siemens has accelerated further research and development for building ventilation, indoor air quality, crowd management, and infrastructure optimization—capabilities that are increasingly critical in today’s rapidly evolving built environments and transportation. These innovations will help Siemens to address complex challenges in energy efficiency, resiliency, and public health, while also strengthening its leadership in digital twin and simulation technologies.
“With new technologies released at unprecedented fast pace, the future of aerospace and defense depends more and more on the ability to create and maintain an ecosystem of excellence,” said Paolo Colombo Global Industry Development Lead, Aerospace & Defense, Siemens Digital Industries Software (DISW). “The partnership between the ASDL and Siemens exemplifies that to perfection: A research institution ranking globally in the aerospace, defense and transportation sectors, with bright researchers and students able to do their job with Siemens technology, seamlessly connecting data, models, and systems across the entire lifecycle.”
