Software Evolution of I4.0 Digital Twins with Semantic Patching

We examine semantic patching, an important technique of software evolution, that allows us to automate to a large extent the adaption of external open-source libraries for Digital Twins with a high degree of correctness. While this technique is widely known in specialized software engineering circles, we aim to popularize it among the automation community. We evaluate and compare its advantages against other adaptation methods in three practical use cases where the widely-used aas-core Software Development Kit is adapted for different lighthouse projects in Industrie 4.0, written in Python, C#, and Java, respectively. The results highlight the effectiveness of semantic patching in automating the process, minimizing errors and ensuring a seamless transition.