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PUBLICATIONS

Interoperability of Digital Twins: Challenges, Success Factors, and Future Research Directions

Published

Author(s)

Istvan David, Guodong Shao, Dawn Tilbury, Claudio Gomes, Bassam Zarkhout

Abstract

The widespread adoption of digital twins gave rise to emerging systems of interconnected digital twins, often dubbed aggregated or hierarchical digital twins. In such emerging systems, interoperability of digital twins is key in determining the capabilities and qualitative properties of the emerging system. Despite the elevated interest in practice, there is little research on the emerging topic of interoperability of digital twins. In this paper, we report on a panel discussion that took place at the 2023 Annual Simulation Conference with four esteemed experts representing four distinct perspectives on the topic: strategic (why do aggregated digital twins matter?), technical (how does co-simulation support a distributed set of concerns over multiple digital twins?), standardization (how can standards enable interoperability?), and organizational (how do organizations deal with advanced digital twinning scenarios?). We report the key arguments and aggregate them into a discussion about challenges, success factors, and recommend future research directions.
Proceedings Title
ISoLA 2024
Conference Dates
October 27-31, 2024
Conference Location
Crete, GR
Pub Type
Conferences

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Keywords

Digital Twins, Interoperability, ISO23247, Simulation, Standardization, Systems of systems
Systems integration, Standards, Manufacturing and Interoperability in manufacturing

Citation

David, I. , Shao, G. , Tilbury, D. , Gomes, C. and Zarkhout, B. (2024), Interoperability of Digital Twins: Challenges, Success Factors, and Future Research Directions, ISoLA 2024, Crete, GR, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=956427 (Accessed October 13, 2025)

Issues

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Created October 30, 2024, Updated November 18, 2024
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