Digital Twin Standards, Open Source, and Best Practices

Abstract

The 4th Industrial Revolution is improving the existing industry’s paradigm in a radical way by digitally transforming everything, including life and business, using digital technology. The digital twin technology, which forms the core of such a digital transformation, provides benefits such as optimal operation and cost reduction by implementing the real world in a virtual space and analyzing, controlling, and simulating. Digital twins are now being applied to all industries, starting with manufacturing, city, energy, agriculture, and healthcare. As digital twins, which started in manufacturing, spread to all areas of the industry, interoperability is emerging as an important issue. To provide interoperability in digital twins, various global standards development organizations (SDOs) have come up with specifications related to the digital twin. For example, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is developing standards for 5G, which can provide high-speed and reliable communication functions required for digital twins, and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OCG) manages geospatial information used in smart cities and other domains. ISO/TC 184 covers industrial data standards used in various domains such as manufacturing, industrial automation, and information systems. Furthermore, oneM2M, a global initiative to standardize a service layer IoT platform, defines common service functions for digital twins. In this chapter, in particular, ISO/TC 184 for industrial data in the smart factory field, ISO/IEEE for the digital health data, IEC TC65 for the interoperability in the smart factory, and oneM2M for service function for digital twin services are introduced. In addition, open-source activities in the domain of digital twins are gradually expanding in particular for digital twin platforms and data management. In addition to this, we look at several best practices of digital twins around the world.