A Meta-Framework for Virtual Entities Within Digital Twins: Better Understanding for Stakeholders and Technologies

Digital Twins (DT) represent a transformative technology that bridges the physical and digital worlds. The rapid advancement of DT, providing a virtual representation of a physical asset called Virtual Entity (VE), has led to the development of various DT solutions. However, research indicates a lack of a unified understanding of the VE’s role among stakeholders, creating challenges when comparing existing DT frameworks, technologies, and components. This paper introduces a meta-framework encompassing three main concepts: First, it defines three specific Perspectives to cover all aspects of the VE. Second, it introduces three Levels of Abstraction to identify underlying features and models of existing technologies, as well as to integrate stakeholder views represented through cognitive mental models. Third, through the concept of Technological Interlocking, the interconnected nature of technologies at the implementation stage is recognized and enables the alignment between mental models and current technologies and frameworks. As a tool, the meta-framework serves three main functions: First, it provides insights and knowledge about VEs within existing frameworks. Second, it allows for their comparison. Third, it promotes the reuse of existing components as a groundwork for DT development. By applying the meta-framework to three commonly used DT frameworks, we can extract their single features and models and place them within the context of the VE. This analysis reveals that certain VE representations lack behavioral models, a key concept of DTs. Furthermore, based on an industry-specific use-case, mapping the mental models of specific stakeholders to existing technologies lays the groundwork for new DT solutions. Overall, the presented meta-framework promotes a unified understanding of VEs that is independent of technology and stakeholder specifics.