Experimentable Digital Twins—Streamlining Simulation-Based Systems Engineering for Industry 4.0

Abstract

Digital twins represent real objects or subjects with their data, functions, and communication capabilities in the digital world. As nodes within the internet of things, they enable networking and thus the automation of complex value-added chains. The application of simulation techniques brings digital twins to life and makes them experimentable; digital twins become experimentable digital twins (EDTs). Initially, these EDTs communicate with each other purely in the virtual world. The resulting networks of interacting EDTs model different application scenarios and are simulated in virtual testbeds, providing new foundations for comprehensive simulation-based systems engineering. Its focus is on EDTs, which become more detailed with every single application. Thus, complete digital representations of the respective real assets and their behaviors are created successively. The networking of EDTs with real assets leads to hybrid application scenarios in which EDTs are used in combination with real hardware, thus realizing complex control algorithms, innovative user interfaces, or mental models for intelligent systems.