Hierarchical Digital Twin Ecosystem for Industrial Manufacturing Scenarios

Matteo Martinelli, Jingxi Zhang, Ann-Kathrin Splettstößer, Marco Picone, Marco Lippi, Andreas Wortmann

Abstract: Modern industrial systems, characterised by distributed and fragmented equipment, present challenges due to their inherent heterogeneity and complexity. This should not impact the stakeholders' business logic, who are more concerned with the information itself rather than how it is collected or processed. Recently, Digital Twins - software copies of physical assets and systems - emerged as a pivotal strategy to bridge the cyber-physical world into an effective digital layer decoupling applications from the management and interaction with physical assets. Fostering this vision, we propose a structured industrial Digital Twins ecosystem exploiting twin relationships and hier-archies to build a digitalised replica of the whole manufacturing system structure enabling a simplified navigation and interaction with the physical world and the data it generates. To support the depicted visions, a fully functioning prototype has been implemented and evaluated in an experimental scenario.