Roadmap for Adoption of Distributed Interactive Simulation Approach for Integration of Digital Twins for Industrial Applications

Abstract

The industrial metaverse, the next step in the industrial digitalization process, requires a network of interconnected digital twins (DT) as a backbone. Digital twins are expected to support emerging business models and facilitate their development and understanding while offering plug-and-play convenience at the deployment. They must be composable and interoperable within themselves and between each other. All the necessary technologies for the task are considered available. However, the challenge of developing an approach in a cross-domain and cross-organizational manner remains. This dissertation investigates the applicability of the concepts and principles from the domain of DIS (Distributed Interactive Simulations) to support the DT engineering process in meeting these requirements.

Documented in a collection of IEEE standards, DIS was initially conceived for the development of military training exercises and its vocabulary is strongly connected with the domain. This work evaluated the elements and components of DIS architecture from IEEE Std 1278.1-2012 - Application Protocols and the related engineering process described by IEEE Std 1730-2010. Analogical reasoning was applied to overcome the domain bias. The results of the standards evaluation were then illustrated with a case study combining two off-the-shelf DT development tools: one for physics-based DT, and another for resource allocation and material flow scenarios. Learnings from the case study were then framed as a roadmap for adopting DIS principles to implementing a multi-DT project, detailing actors, areas of focus, and practical steps.

The study found that select elements have synergy with the approaches to DT engineering based on the system of systems view and fit into the DT architecture vision presented as DT Capability Periodic Table (CPT) and Platform Stack Architecture Framework, where they can be adjusted for development of the application service interfaces of the virtual representation. In this regard, it is suggested to focus future research on further distillation of the interaction patterns covered by the protocol families of IEEE Std 1278.1-2012, decoupling them from the defense domain terminology to facilitate the identification of the patterns across domains. A procedure for further expansion of the library of patterns must be established to include scenarios not covered in DIS.