Three-Dimension Digital Twin Reference Architecture Model for Functionality, Dependability, and Life Cycle Development Across Industries

The Digital Twin concept promises numerous applications across industries and its physical twin’s entire life cycle. Although numerous architectures have been proposed to develop and describe the setup of Digital Twin applications, current Digital Twin architectures do not address the versatile cross-industry character of the Digital Twin concept, its safety, security, and privacy aspects, and are often use case-specific and inflexible. We propose a three-dimensional Digital Twin reference architecture model for application across industries, considering functionality, dependability, and life cycle aspects. Our model provides practitioners a common platform to develop and discuss Digital Twin applications of different complexities and dependability aspects along varying life cycles and independent of the industry. Its applicability is validated and showcased by examples from the fields of mechatronic products, healthcare, construction, transportation, astronautics, and the energy sector. We compare our reference architecture model to existing architectures, discuss its advantages and limitations, and position the model within previous literature.