Towards Development Platforms for Digital Twins: A Model-Driven Low-Code Approach

Abstract

Digital Twins in smart manufacturing must be highly adaptable for different challenges, environments, and system states. In practice, there is a need for enabling the configuration of Digital Twins by domain experts. Low-code approaches seem to be a meaningful solution for configuration purposes but often lack extension options. We propose a model-driven low-code approach for the configuration and reconfiguration of Digital Twins using language plugins. This approach uses model-driven software engineering and software language engineering methods to derive a configurable digital twin implementation. Moreover, we discuss some remaining challenges such as interoperability, language modularity, evolution, integration of assistive services, collaborative development, and web-based debugging.