Overview
According to Wikipedia: A digital twin is a digital replica of a living or non-living physical entity. Digital twin refers to a digital replica of potential and actual physical assets (physical twin), processes, people, places, systems and devices that can be used for various purposes. The digital representation provides both the elements and the dynamics of how an Internet of things (IoT) device operates and lives throughout its life cycle.
Whilst the history and development of Digital Twin application has primarily been within manufacturing organisations, it is clear from recent developments (Cloud Service Providers) that they offer huge potential in many other areas including IOT management, Smart Cities and Cyber Security. If we consider the Wikipedia definition above, and on their website, they use the concept of a digital twin as a “replica of a living or non-living physical entity”. This Replica should therefore contain the necessary and sufficient properties, features and characteristics of the real instance for the Replica to be useful in its virtual environment. That to me suggests that there should be some method or framework to define the Digital Twin as well as the use of controls or standards to manage it and enable its interoperability with other things.
The things that Digital Twins will replicate will differ in accordance with their Physical Twin’s:
- Complexity
- Depth of Application
- Breadth of Application
A Digital Twin of an autonomous vehicle will have greater complexity, depth and breadth in operation that that of a traffic light for example. But if the two of them are to interact for the sake of safety or security simulations then there must be those points of commonality and especially if they are designed by two different parties. This important point can only be achieved if there are standards, methods or agreements the two parties can apply. This would mean that the architecture of a Digital Twin should have some form of semantic or ontological structure in the design process. A review of white papers and academic research shows that there has already been a lot of work done on the benefits of semantic or ontology support for Digital Twin design and usage. So for the purpose of this section i am going to look at the different service providers of Digital Twin solutions. methods of Digital Twin design and how they will provide a role in the cyber security of Smart Cities.
Each of the providers below will enable one or more of the following benefits:
- Knowledge Graph development
- Data Visualisation
- Data Analytics
- Increased decision support
- Reasoning
- Monitoring
- Alerting and diagnostics
- Edge control What-If analysis
- Scenario Planning with Backend Systems
| System Integrator & Software Service Provider Digital Twin Solutions |
|---|
| General Electric |
| Bosch |
| PTC |
| Johnson Controls |
| Deloitte |
Smart City Cyber Security 