Smart system communication between Digital Twins based on GAIA-X

Current technical systems are increasingly developing into complex systems of cyber-physical systems. This trend can be observed in almost all application areas, also and in particular in production and logistics, and is currently being reinforced, for example, by modern sensor technology, the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0 concepts and cloud/edge computing.

A central question is how the emerging models, methods and processes can be described and merged. The concept of the Digital Twin provides crucial insights here. A Digital Twin is a virtual digital 1-to-1 representation of its Real Twin (especially in terms of semantics, structure, behavior, and interaction), that enables interaction based on current Digital Artifacts. Digital Twins, like their Real Twins, can be arranged and interconnected in hierarchical and heterarchical structures.

Once digital twins of real world assets are in place, they need to be connected to each other, e.g., to provide or request services. A smart system infrastructure must be built on capabilities such as authentication, catalog functions, efficient data exchange, etc. However, these capabilities are not specific to connecting Digital Twins, but are a general basis to link data ecosystems and infrastructure ecosystem together. This insight was a major driver for the GAIA-X initiative.

GAIA-X has the potential to serve as the European source of trust for establishing not only EU-wide but globally operating digital economies of the future. It will enable highly inter-connected, modern and consensual digital workloads built upon a multitude of technologies and approaches.

In this thesis, the GAIA-X approach of “federated services” shall be put to the test for the interconnection of Digital Twins in the application fields of production and forestry.

Based on the smart systems services infrastructure (S3I) which was developed at the MMI for the interconnection of Digital Twins, a feature comparison and a migration path to GAIA-X shall be developed and prototypically implemented.