Service-Oriented Architecture for I4.0 Digital Twins

In the dawn of Industry 4.0, a new era of unprecedented efficiency beckons, powered by the intricate web of interconnected machines, manufacturing sites, vendors, and consumers. The linchpin of this transformative journey is the Digital Twin, embodied in the Asset Administration Shell. By meticulously mirroring every facet of the real-world asset, the AAS offers a standardized portal for real-time data acquisition and proactive asset management. We present a Servicer Oriented Architecture for implementing Industry 4.0 Digital Twins using the Asset Administration Shell. We propose partitioning the AAS into a microservice network and formalise service definitions using gRPC and Protobuf. Our architecture allows for transparent service relocation near the asset, leveraging efficient gRPC communication. Additionally, We demonstrate that code generation tools streamline boilerplate generation and simplify the architecture update process.