Foundations for Digital Twins

TL;DR

This paper establishes a foundational ontological framework for digital twins using the Common Core Ontologies to address semantic interoperability challenges across industries.

Contribution

It introduces formal definitions and design patterns for digital twins within an ontological context, enhancing interoperability and semantic clarity.

Findings

Defined digital twins within the Common Core Ontologies framework

Provided design patterns for digital twin representation

Illustrated use cases demonstrating ontological applications

Abstract

The growing reliance on digital twins across various industries and domains brings with it semantic interoperability challenges. Ontologies are a well-known strategy for addressing such challenges, though given the complexity of the phenomenon, there are risks of reintroducing the interoperability challenges at the level of ontology representations. In the interest of avoiding such pitfalls, we introduce and defend characterizations of digital twins within the context of the Common Core Ontologies, an extension of the widely-used Basic Formal Ontology. We provide a set of definitions and design patterns relevant to the domain of digital twins, highlighted by illustrative use cases of digital twins and their physical counterparts. In doing so, we provide a foundation on which to build more sophisticated ontological content related and connected to digital twins.