Applications of Digital Twins in UAVs

In the recent years, Digital Twins (DTs) have been extensively used in numerous domains. On vehicular applications specifically, most are focused on ground vehicles with proven advantages. But how about the application of DTs in the UAV domain? This paper presents an extensive survey where we aim to address four related research questions, namely if DTs are used in UAVs, which are the applications of DTs in UAVs, if DTs can be applied to any UAV type and, finally, what are the specific tools used for DT implementation in the UAV domain. Using a well-defined research methodology, we collected and reviewed more than 70 publications on the subject. Through different categorizations of the publications under study and an aggregated presentation in tabular format, the reader is able to gain a thorough understanding of recent developments in this area of research.