Revisiting digital twins: Origins, fundamentals, and practices

The digital twins (DT) has quickly become a hot topic since it was proposed. It appears in all kinds of commercial propaganda and is widely quoted by academic circles. However, the term DT misstatements misused business academics. This study revisits defines to be more advanced system/product/service modeling simulation environment that combines most modern information communication technologies (ICTs) engineering mechanism digitization characterized life cycle management, physically geometric visualization, real-time sensing measurement system operating conditions, predictability performance/safety/lifespan, complete mechanisms-based simulations. idea originates from practices informatization, including virtual manufacturing (VM), model predictive control, building (BIM). On basis two-element VM model, we propose three-element represent DT. does not have its unique technical characteristics. existing are extensions informatization embracing ICTs. These insights clarify origin essentials.