IIC publishes report on digital twin core conceptual models and services

The Industry IoT Consortium (IIC) has published its Digital Twin Core Conceptual Models and Services Technical Report. The organization shares in a press statement that the report guides technical decision-makers, system engineers, software architects and modelers about connecting the foundational IT infrastructure with industry-specific business applications powered by digital twins in industrial settings.

“Digital transformation often involves creating synchronized virtual representations of real-world entities, or digital twins,” said Shi-Wan Lin, CTO of Yo-I Information Technologies, and one of the report’s co-authors. “A shared understanding of the core models and services of digital twins simplifies the design of business applications powered by interoperable digital twins across various industries. This technical report aims to address this goal. “

The report describes digital twin fundamental concepts and basic requirements, core conceptual models and services, enabling architectures and technologies and supported business applications. It provides high-level technical considerations in implementing the digital twin core layer, aligned to the Virtual Representation section of the Digital Twin Consortium (DTC) Platform Stack Architectural Framework: An Introductory Guide. The DTC guide clarifies digital twin system central concepts and capabilities, reviews commonly adopted technological approaches and standards, and introduces an architectural framework of the key common elements of digital twin systems.

The IIC report also includes a survey of relevant standards and can be used as input for standards development for digital twins.

“Digital twins are becoming more prevalent in a wide variety of industries such as manufacturing, construction, smart city, healthcare, business. However, the ecosystem of digital twins has not been well established,” said Guodong Shao, computer scientist, project manager, Digital Twins for Advanced Manufacturing at NIST and one of the co-authors of the report. “Developing and integrating digital twins presents significant challenges. This document covers provisions for requirements and possible solutions for Standards Development Organizations to further develop standardized frameworks, reference models, and interface specifications to help ensure digital twin interoperability, reliability, validity, security, and trust.”