BETHESDA, Md. – As global conflict increases, the Navy needs its fleet available more often, with less downtime and lower service costs. Dr. Michael Robert, Technical Project Manager at Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Carderock Division, believes digital twin technology offers a powerful way forward – something he and his team have been proving through years of internal development and successful pilots.
“If you could increase the operational availability of each ship by even 1%, it’s like adding three new ships to the fleet without building anything,” he said.
A digital twin is a virtual model of a system or platform that combines real-time sensor data with physics-based modeling and machine learning. It gives engineers and Sailors a dynamic, evolving picture of a vessel's performance and helps them spot degradation early, predict failure before it happens, and make smarter maintenance decisions across a ship’s life cycle.
Unlike traditional condition-based maintenance, digital twin relies on historical failure data, sensor inputs, stress profiles and predictive analytics to assess risk in real time, allowing maintenance to be scheduled when it matters most, not just because a checklist says so. For Robert, this shift is key to accelerating the Navy’s readiness.
He sees the technology as much more than just a maintenance tool. The predictive, data-driven approach aligns directly with Naval Sea System Command’s broader strategic goals: delivering capability on time, improving material readiness, and enhancing cyber-physical resilience.
The first major demonstration of the technology's viability came aboard the Navy’s Self Defense Test Ship (SDTS), where Robert’s team demonstrated that a closed-loop prognostic system could actually work on a Navy platform. That moment helped shift the perception of digital twin from “interesting” to “operational,” and garnered the support of leadership across the enterprise.
“It wasn’t just ‘go do cool science,’” Robert said. “We were actually encouraged to deliver operational technology.”
From there, the work expanded organically. Collaborations with NSWC Port Hueneme Division, NSWC Philadelphia Division, and several Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) firms helped the team scale the capability for carriers, submarines, surface combatants and unmanned systems. Today, digital twin tools are being built directly into the Navy’s next-generation SSN(X) fast-attack submarine design from day one, not bolted on after the fact.
“Our Navy Digital Twin hardware and software have been developed organically within Department 70,” Robert said. “That allows us to move very quickly.”
While the technology is impressive, Robert is quick to credit the people behind it. His team, made up of veterans, PhDs, software engineers, and technicians, works across the Navy’s R&D and acquisition communities to make sure the science stays grounded in real-world need.
And for Robert, leadership isn’t about micromanaging innovation.
“I try to make sure we have resources; I try to maintain the vision and to remove barriers, and then I just get out of the way and let the team innovate,” he said.
Not all the barriers have been technical. One of the biggest challenges his team has faced is people’s discomfort with predictive models and AI. For some, the idea of a system making recommendations, no matter how well-informed, feels like a risk.
“A lot of people don’t want to be told what to do by a computer,” Robert said. “Even if it’s not actually telling you what to do it’s giving you options, probabilities and risk assessments – it is a paradigm shift that requires a cultural shift. We have ensured that Subject Matter Experts are included in the decision-making loop.”
Robert’s approach? Keep it clear. Keep it user centric. The team spends time walking stakeholders through what the tools actually do, where the limits are, and how these systems support, not replace, decision-making. Robert’s team is supporting a discovery excursion exercise that involves end users to develop operational requirements.
“I’ve had to build trust slowly,” he said. “You don’t win over everyone right away. But when people see that the capability can improve current methodologies, they become more involved and contributing.”
That trust helped push the work beyond pilot programs and into fleet-level programs. As the models matured, so did opportunities to scale them across platforms and across borders. Robert’s team began sharing lessons and tools with partners across the Navy Research and Development Establishment (NR&DE) and soon found opportunities to extend that impact internationally.
Digital twin efforts are now underway through a Cooperative Working Project (CWP) with Brazil, several NATO initiatives, and a formal collaboration with Australia to support their submarine fleet. These partnerships bring value far beyond shared insight.
By co-developing tools and sharing infrastructure, the Navy gains access to broader data, unique engineering perspectives, and modeling innovations – without shouldering the full cost.
“We get to leverage the expertise of other nations at a fraction of the cost to the Navy; that is [what it] provides,” Robert said. “It’s a win-win.”
Through NATO technical exchanges and working groups, his team is helping shape the standards and frameworks that could define how predictive tools are used across allied fleets for years to come.
Robert says these collaborations don’t just help stretch budgets; they help make the tools stronger. Designing for interoperability across nations pushes the team to build systems that are flexible, scalable, and resilient under pressure.
“This is about building resilient systems,” Robert said. “But it’s also about building resilient partnerships.”
For Robert, the real impact lies in how digital twin technology brings together people, platforms, and data to solve hard problems; ones that don’t have easy answers. It’s why he started working in this space, and why the mission still motivates him today.
“This isn’t about replacing people,” he said. “It’s about giving them better tools to do the job.”
As the Navy looks to the future, digital twin technology isn’t just improving how we maintain ships, it’s changing how they are designed. It paves the way for smarter, more adaptable capability differentiators.
“I always wanted to work on something the Navy warfighter needed underway. Something where the answer wasn’t obvious,” Robert said. “That’s what this is all about.”