Digital Twins have been around for decades, especially in industrial processes. However, with the recent advent of transformative digital technologies (i.e. IoT, AI, ML, Big Data analytics, and ubiquitous connectivity) Digital Twins are changing most of the society sectors, providing the most advance pattern to make the physical and the digital worlds interact.
Naturally, this is also true for the scientific sector, and in particular those disciplines that are engaged in understanding and addressing the Global Change effects. Thanks to the Digital Twins growing development, for the first time, it is possible to envision a digital replica of important natural and social phenomena and processes, trying to anticipate their behaviour. There exist diverse definitions of Digital Twins, reflecting the diverse concerns of the industrial, scientific, and standardization sectors (in particular IEEE and ISO/IEC), which have been working on their description and realization.
The main interaction features characterizing a Digital Twin are:
- Interoperability;
- Information Model;
- Data Exchange;
- Administration;
- Synchronization;
- Push mode (Publish Subscribe).
According the scientific research, there is still the need to address the following challenges to push Digital Twins implementation and effective use:
- Unify data and model standards;
- Share data and models;
- Innovate on services;
- Establish forums.
In industry, Digital Twins are well used in “vertical” sectors/application areas, including: manufacturing, energy, smart cities, farming, building, healthcare. For the applied scientific and research areas, this preliminary study recognized several areas.
NATIVI Stefano;
DELIPETREV Blagoj;
CRAGLIA Massimo;
2020-11-09
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC122457
978-92-76-25160-6 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 30438 EN,
OP KJ-NA-30438-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC122457,
10.2760/430025 (online),
